The View From Down Here

Beggar Baiting for Fun and no Profit

On Bloodhoof-EU, like many servers I guess, there is a proliferation of many players who are too lazy to go out and get the money they need by running quests, killing mobs and the like. BigRedKitty has his own way of dealing with them, but I have to say I’m much more of a stick than a carrot person.

The trick is a really simple one – give them what they want. Almost.

Sit there, with the cash in your trade window and wait for them to get bored. Say nothing, do nothing (except type 10G or whatever in every time they present a trade window). Generally speaking, I’ll only do this if I’m not busy, but if the beggars get their time wasted by at least one person a day I imagine they’d stop doing it.  And the length of time and creativity they will go to is amazing – I went off to dinner and came back to this:

Apparently I’ll be willing to trade those wonderful low-level crafting materials for 10 of my hard-won gold coins. I can’t imagine anyone who’d think twice about making that trade – it’s obviously a great deal.

In this case my unsuspecting victim gave up after half an hour of their time wasted, but I’ve gone for over an hour before. If we all took this action when we could, I reckon there’d be rather less beggars about. And that’s a permanent change in the world that you can claim to have had a real part in.

EDIT: Did I mention I hate people asking for boosts too? I do seem to be in a bastardly mood today.