Art buying and Account sharing

Greetings everyone! For the past month I've rejoined the royals community and have enjoyed my time for the most part. However all good times must have their bad times for some and today I'd like to discuss a couple issues that I've seen in the forums lately. Art buying and Account sharing. I'll discuss art buying first since it's not as heavy a topic.

For those who don't know what Art buying means let me shed some light. In out lovely forums we have a sections for all our awesome artists to post their works and for people to enjoy them as well. This I am perfectly fine with, I love art, I love the creations our community makes. What I don't like is Art buying. I have seen on a few different occasions of players essentially selling their art for in game items such as mesos, items, nx, etc. Is this right or wrong? In my opinion I believe this is an unfair advantage that these players having creating art and being to create a new income that most players don't have. I'm not artistic in the slightest and that's fine. But is it okay for people to sell their art to make an money off of it?

Next on the list is account sharing. I've done a lot of research on past cases and what the current rules are on account sharing before I voice my opinion on this topic. Let me be straight here the current rules on account sharing are over the top. If you check ban appeals every day like I do you'll see lots of players appealing for account sharing. Some people need help with zjq and some people let their friends play at their house with their account. Is it necessary to give the people who are in need of service to get a permanent ban? Now I understand that the whole reason account sharing is prohibited is because of how things are ran on this server. Say a new guy joins the server and has a real life friend who is quitting soon. This friend has highly valuable equipment, a high level character, and over 50k nx. It's because of this scenario or similar scenarios that account sharing is not allowed. If a player is seen as getting an extreme advantage then yes I can see how it would be a permanent ban. But there are some who have enjoyed this server, cherished it, And they get smacked with a permanent ban. Because they needed assistance with a jump quest? Now in these situations wouldn't a 30 day ban be acceptable? Why does a player have to be banned FOREVER. Not just a month, not just a year, but forever. Exiled, never allowed to return.

I would very much like feedback on both of these things. Is art buying fair? Is account sharing too harsh?

 

Point of clarification: for those who account share only for a ZJQ, they are given a 30 day ban and their ZJQ is reset so they do not reap the benefits from sharing their account anyway.

 

I personally don't understand that selling art on here for mesos is allowed. That said i don't see it as a big problem mostly because as far as i know theres no one supplying vast quantities under short time frames and getting paid well for it. I haven't kept up with all the art threads but usually what seemed to happen with these threads were, people painting your character and stuff like that, not for a great sum of mesos just a small amount compared to the amount of hours they claimed to put into the artwork. What amount of mesos people charged for their art was usually reflected by the amount of mesos one could've gained through playing the game for the same amount of time as it took to finish the painting, sometimes the artist would charge even less.

I don't think account sharing is harsh at all, you are allowed to give your items away to friends if you decide to not play anymore or for what ever reason, just dont give them your account info.

 

I completely agree, most people spend hours creating a piece of art that they exchange for very few mesos (i.e. 20 to 40 mil is what I've seen), which isn't too great of a benefit as they can easily sell leech, APQ, or do something else to gain even more mesos. Also I believe it's important to note that a fair amount of the people providing the art are doing it for free and they say that if you want to contribute any mesos, feel free, but it's not asked nor required of you to. (Sort of considering it a "tip" for their service.)

In regards to account sharing, I do believe that the server has some pretty stringent rules placed, and no I don't think that someone should be banned for 30 days for having simply asked someone to do the Zakum JQ on their behalf. However, I do understand the reasons in which the rules are placed, as fair game play is the core behind these rules. Besides, there are so many helpful guides in this server that you wouldn't really need anyone's help in anything like Zakum JQ, 4th job advancement, etc.

 

Selling artwork for mesos is rwt, I don't get how people don't see that. They're selling a commodity outside of the game for in-game currency, just because it's Royals related artwork doesn't suddenly make it not rwt. It has less to do with the amount of work you put in versus the money you're making but rather the implications of selling outside artwork for in-game money.

Now for account sharing, this is my personal opinion on the matter, I don't think account sharing should be bannable. If you're willing to risk getting your account hacked to reap the benefits of account sharing then that's on you, it's your account and you should be able to do whatever you want with it. I see it as the same way people lend out equips to friends but on a higher level in terms of risk and reward. It's no doubt unfair to those who're able to abuse it, whether that's having trustworthy family, guildies or friends that'll help them but again, they're risking their account and possibly other personal details for it. I used to share steam accounts with a few friends before they introduced the family system because I have games that they don't have and they have games that I don't have and none of us want to spend unnecessary money on games that we can simply borrow from each other. Remember when you were 10 and your friend had this 1 ps2 game that you've always wanted to play? Instead of asking your parents to buy it you'd just borrow it from him and return it after beating it. To me that's the same as account sharing. Also I don't take this game as seriously as before so I couldn't care less if people gained a competitive advantage over others from account sharing.

Edit: Despite saying all that about account sharing, I'm still against the idea of allowing it simply for the sake of integrity.

 

Selling artwork for mesos is undeniably a form of RWT. However, I do believe that it positively affects the community which is why I support it being allowed.

On one hand, you have players who have the ability to use their artistic skills to create images and sell them for in-game currency. This means that some players have an external method of making mesos, which gives them a slight advantage over other players. It is also a type of real world trading, which is against the Terms & Conditions of the server. These two reasons contradict the purpose of the rules being here on the server.

On the other, players now have access to another service provided by other players. Similar to leeching, you pay a person to share their skills with you. However, the service is purely aesthetic, meaning the buyer gains nothing in-game. Considering the fact that a drawing has no actual monetary value unless given one, it may as well be considered free. It's not like you can resell an artist's drawing of your character to someone else in real life anyways. In regards to the idea that it provides players with an unfair advantage, I'd like to point out that anyone could do it, but not everyone will. Just because you aren't skilled at art doesn't mean you can't just sell simple drawings. If you hadn't noticed, most of us aren't doing it for a living. Instead, a lot of us draw, paint, or play around with the creative software as a hobby. I think that the interests that we share with each other are what bring this community to life.

I also believe that the main reason players decide to sell their art is to limit the number of requests they get. If it were me, I'd love to draw every player's characters for fun, but frankly that's just unrealistic. Any time I show my drawings to friends, I always have at least a couple people wanting me to draw something up for them and it just makes me awful for telling them no. In a server as populated as MapleRoyals, I'd imagine that scenario being much worse especially because this server has such an active community. It takes me anywhere between an hour to a week of nonstop work to finish a piece so unfortunately, limiting the number of requests I have is a must. The incentive of being paid to draw is only a minor encouragement as well. It's different for everyone, but in my case, rather than making 60m/hr from farming, I'd be spending a few hours for a fraction of the mesos. I'm not saying artists couldn't just draw the first 5-10 people who reply to their thread or however many they decide to offer, but the amount you earn is negligible in most cases. I'm willing to bet that a majority of the people that sell art here only posted their thread to get themselves to be more artistically productive, but not to the point where they're overwhelmed with the workload.

The only reason to even consider prohibiting players from selling their art is because it's considered RWT, but I just don't see how it's a problem. None of the artists providing their services are filthy rich and even if they were to earn mesos fast, they'd eventually tire themselves out trying to be efficient. If it's a matter of strictly sticking to the rules then I'd vote for an exception to be made (as long as it's never for earning RP/real money).

As for account sharing, I like it just the way it is now. While I could care less if people shared accounts for ZJQ, in a competitive server such as MapleRoyals, being able to leech/train/fund yourself using another player's character is considered cheating in my opinion. I wouldn't mind the ban length being shortened, but being banned for account sharing is fair game if it is written in the T&C.

 

Let's put it this way, if I offered you $100 for 10bil would you question that it's a violation of the ToS? Of course not, there's no denying that's an act of rwt. What if I offered you items from another game for that same sum of money, would you still think so? Probably. Now what if I bought a bunch of maple merchandises from a convention and mailed them to you in exchange for your mesos? You probably still think it's wrong. So what makes that any different than selling artworks? Think about it, both the maple merchandises and the artwork have nothing to do with the game and are a form of rwt, except selling maple artworks is innocently disguised to slip through our minds as being rwt. You can't compare it to selling leech because leeching happens within the game and selling artworks doesn't.

The part that gets iffy is like you said, that these drawings have no actual monetary value unless given one. People are willing to do drawings for people for free but then they realized "hey I can do this out of my own personal interest AND make a little extra side money so why not!" and use that as an excuse for rwt. If my friend gave me 2bil "out of good will" with no intent of rwt then I pay him back the following day by drawing a picture of him would that be considered rwt? We weren't directly involved in rwt but it might as well have been. Where do we draw the line between what's rwt and what's not? Is it based on the person's intent or do we just go by the act? Am I allowed to openly say I've been given free leech/money from friends because I've helped them out outside of the game without being suspected of rwt?

This post along with my previous one is probably making me sound very anti-art-selling but that's not at all what I'm trying to say. I don't think selling artworks is a big deal even if it's rwt and hope it doesn't get banned. If others are having fun with it then that's great, we shouldn't take that away from people! I guess what I'm trying to say is this server should stop taking itself so seriously. Banning someone for blatantly going out of their way to purchase mesos with real life money makes perfect sense but banning someone like doochis for joking about rwt should never happen. Sorry for bringing that up but I had to.

 

I find it weird how you are saying that selling art is unfair for those that don't have the skill to make sellable art. Then right after you say that you think it's okay to do account sharing. Account sharing is unfair for those that don't have a friend that can help them, which gives the people account sharing an unfair advantage. It's the same thing.

Personally I find the 30 days ban a bit too much for a small case of account sharing. Someone doing ZJQ should be like 7 days and reset quest, same should someone logging into another account just to do something with the guild be like 7 days ban. Not 30 days. That's just unreasonable when compared to for instance botting, which only gives you a 7 day ban, and in my opinion is way worse and gives the player a lot bigger advantage than just someone logging into another account to add a person to a guild or even doing one ZJQ.

 

That's why I wanted to bring up art selling. I don't mind if people display their artwork. I encourage it! But there needs to be a line drawn on the issue. Regardless if it's "only 20-40m," That's still mesos they got by not using the games resources to obtain. What is stopping somebody from having a friend draw art for them while they are farming in game? It's a stretch yes, but it's a possibility.

I didn't mean to say that account sharing is okay. My rants tend to get out of hand. What I have an issue with is like what you mentioned. It's how the bans are 30 days minimum. However I only see account sharing being a permanent decision. And yes I find botting to be a lot worse. The server however sees account sharing as worse.

 

People selling their artwork on the forum is real world trading, I'm not sure why it has been allowed either, but in the same breath I have no objection to it either. However as many people have been perm banned for trading other game items for meso here why is it okay to trade images? In both cases, the player has to spend a number of hours creating or gaining such items for trade. *shrugs*

Then again, I've not looked into artwork much myself, the only thread I did look at askined for a donation only so it's not really selling?

Much like the OP, I read all the ban appeals. Anytime someone has been banned solely for completing the Zakum jump quest I have only ever seen them being banned for the 30 days, not permanent as you suggest.

 

I believe RWT is to prevent a pay2win system where as art selling just gives us cool pictures to post as our forum avatars and signatures. I don't really see how you can lump them together but can see why some people may be upset by this.

 

in my opinion,
art selling should be cool bcuz you see people do it in every game
seller and costumer are usually happy after getting what they want, for the price they paid.
An artist does not make good amount of currency if they sucks, it's obvious that those who get paid a lot are usually a better artist. And it's not like they have not "work" to make a good art. From experience i know that if you want a good art, the artist have make sketch, then line art, then color them, and all those layers it's pretty much a job, it usually takes atleast half hour to make a good art (and that's for a kinda professional artist), for me if i want to make an alright looking art i might spend atleast 3hr of "joy" to draw and get paid for about 100m-150m. People usually buy leech like 45m/hr and the leecher is usually a bishop, maybe you can compare that bishop with an artist, but the artist usually get more paid because they spent more hours to become an artist and they are more rare than people who make a bishop and click some buttons xD

and mmmm.. also an artist have to own a tablet to draw, or colors and paper if they do traditional drawing. Honestly it is just cool that there's more artist who offer their work for mesos than rlc. For me it's just cool to have bought many art, all discussion and compliment to them, you usually make a new friend and they are an artist

who would give you a free art if you are not friend nor paying them?( art trade, service, $$ and etc..)
TLDR;

Spoiler

art selling is cool, there's more too add why it is awesome, but i leave it there
tc

 

- Just because it's done in lots of online games doesn't mean it should automatically be allowed.

- The fact that it takes the artist time to create his/her art is not a relevant factor. If the fact that it takes time is the cause for it to be legal, exchanging mesos for money should also be legal, because earning money takes time aswell.

- It doesn't matter how fast the artist earns mesos compared to farming mesos in-game.

- Having to own a tablet/other tools is also not a relevant factor. I don't think I need to explain why.

 

Well here's my issue with it. And this might be a stretch. But say a person is buying leech from another player. Say the person is the artist. They could essentially gain money where money normally shouldn't be made. Even if it is minimal it still gives them an advantage over others. Also don't the gm's monitor suspicious activity? Wouldn't 20-40m for nothing be considered suspicious or not really because of things like leeching?

 

I don't think it gives anyone an "advantage." That's like saying Bishops have an advantage by being able to be better leechers and have higher rates they can charge. Is that unfair to the NLs or BMs because they can't really provide that service or not to the same extent? The advantage perspective/argument is not really one I will ever agree with or think is a particularly good point on this topic, though there have been other interesting points brought up in the thread.

 

I'm not saying it's unfair that bishops leech, because that's how the game was designed. But the point I was trying to get across is, as a leecher the only thing that should be happening in that situation is that you are losing money to gain exp. But if you are an artist you essentially are able to gain some of that money back by creating your artwork.

 

I'm kind of confused as to what you're trying to get to here, since you make it sound like creating an artwork is the only way to earn mesos while receiving leech which I believe to be wrong.
On this server we have access to opening multiple clients on the same computer and are allowed to have multiple characters logged in at the same time, this would allow a player to still earn mesos on a different character while receiving leech on another. In either scenario the player still has to perform an action actively to earn the mesos, so I don't see how the artist has the advantage.

 

Artists do gain an advantage in game from being able to sell their art for mesos I don't see how anyone could disagree with that. Not everyone can or want to do art we want to play maplestory and making art was never part of the actual game. The art sellers are taking something that doesn't have anything to do with the game and making profit in the game for doing that. Are we allowed to do other stuff outside the game and get paid for it in mesos as well? probably not I recall someone getting banned for betting on a csgo game for example. This is happening when people are selling/buying mesos for rwc just on a smaller scale no its not pay2win its paint2win. How you try to strengthen your argument by comparing actual game mechanics to this is beyond me.

The problem is one is playing mapleroyals the other one is doing something completely different. Its not the fact that one person can obtain mesos while leeching while the other one cant.

 

I understand that one is playing MapleRoyals and the other is not, but that was not what I was getting at.
His statement is that a player who buys leech is only supposed to lose money, and not gain any of it back.
And then the argument he brings up is that an artist could spend time on earning mesos through the act of creating artworks to sell while receiving leech.
This made it sound to me as if he intended to say that an artist has an advantage over any other player because he can create and sell art while receiving leech, and that there are no other ways to earn mesos during this period of time and I stated that I believe this to be wrong.

On the subject of whether selling art for mesos is a form of RWT I agree with Matt as it's most definitely a form of RWT, though a very minor one, and if players consider this an issue we can stop allowing this.