a dishonest story
I am writing this article because I am tired of the complete dishonesty that governs many of the companies in the MMORPG secondary market today. This industry is run by anonymous companies that don’t have to answer to anyone. You are giving your precious game account to a stranger (usually abroad), with the promise/hope that nothing bad will happen to them during the power leveling process. When this promise is not fulfilled, he has absolutely no recourse and, in most cases, no effective way to communicate with the company. This article will explain how this industry works and what you can expect from it.
In the past, trusting an anonymous company was a small risk. The chance of something happening to your game account was relatively small. However, with the huge success of World of Warcraft (WoW), this is no longer the case. Scamming/hacking WoW game accounts is now big business. With millions of gaming accounts ready to choose from, it’s much easier for deviants to target WoW accounts than a high-security bank account. Hackers specifically write malware, including viruses and spyware, to attack WoW accounts, which they then completely remove within minutes to sell on their websites. To add insult to injury, they WILL DELETE ALL THE CHARACTERS when they’re done!
The reason I discuss anonymous companies and hackers in the same section is because anonymous companies are responsible for all the hacking in the first place. These hackers know exactly how the industry works; they have inside information that helps them distribute their malware. They can also effectively target packet sniffing for account information because they know exactly where Internet bottlenecks are for offshore power-leveling operations. Once they steal the account information, they can quickly sell all the gold/gear on their anonymous website and remove all the characters. In the process of doing this, they damage the reputation of the MMORPG service company the customer most recently bought from, because they will be blamed for the action. In essence, if you buy from an anonymous company that is not responsible for its actions, you are supporting this vicious cycle of theft-disassembly-disposal-sale-repeat.
How to Research a Power Leveling Company
The easiest way to protect yourself is to research the company you plan to place your order with:
1. Avoid websites that strive to remain anonymous. If they only give you an email address or IM ID, you should think twice before dealing with them.
2. Use WHOIS Information To get additional information about the website, there are several different WHOIS providers. Try doing a WHOIS lookup for AAAInternet.com (the website of the Canadian company that founded PGMx.com) and you’ll see that we’ve been registered since 1998. If the registrar you try doesn’t provide contact details, a link may be to the registrar it does when you do your search. If they sign up anonymously, that’s another red flag:
has. http://who.godaddy.com/whoischeck.aspx
b. http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp
against http://revendedores.tucows.com/whois/index_html
If you do your research, you may be able to catch the company in a lie. Do they claim to be an American company? Do they claim to be in business for several years? If they’re going to lie about this, why would you trust them with your game account?
Hacking cases are on the rise
Hacking cases are on the rise due to Blizzard’s attempts to curb the secondary market for World of Warcraft. By doing so, they are creating their own worst enemy. Instead of letting busy players get help upgrading their characters and/or buying in-game gold, they take a heavy-handed approach and suspend or ban accounts they think are cheating in the game. Blizzard is doing a lot more harm to World of Warcraft than good.
While leveling up or buying gold is, in fact, cheating, it is a service that allows busy players to have fun playing a game that they might not otherwise have time to play. The reality is that Blizzard should embrace the secondary market and regulate it. Without the secondary market, there are literally thousands of good players who wouldn’t otherwise play your game. By not supporting these players, Blizzard is alienating them and giving them a good reason to quit the game because they can’t compete with people who play more than 12 hours per day.
The biggest impact Blizzard has is banning gold accounts; this is the easiest for them to track. Blizzard often bans gold farming accounts by the hundreds or even thousands. By doing mass farm account bans like this, Blizzard is actually encouraging hackers. It is not easy for gold producers to collect and deliver their gold inventory to clients, especially if all of that inventory can be cleared in a single day. Instead of farming gold to sell to buyers, hackers now steal players’ gold. Considering the time it takes to steal gold rather than farm it, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why piracy is such a growing problem for World of Warcraft. Many of these hackers are likely gamers who are bitter and angry at Blizzard for “deleting” their new online work.
Account sharing means account termination risk
If you give your account information to ANYONE, you are breaking the rules of the game, period. If you place a power leveling request, you are putting your account at risk. If you read the terms of service, in most cases, you’ll find that you can’t give your password to anyone. The security of your account is your responsibility.
We take important proprietary precautions to help protect your gaming account. We are gamers too, the last thing we want to do is jeopardize your gaming account. We can earn much more by keeping you a loyal customer instead of making a quick buck. But with that being said, you should understand that you should consider the possibility that your precious gaming account is the ultimate price you pay for cheating in the game. If you are not prepared to take this risk, you should consider using a second or new account instead. Of course, this also gives you the opportunity to continue playing while your order is being completed.
PGMx has the experience, inside knowledge, English communication skills, and close relationship with our clients necessary to offer superior protection for your account. Our proprietary precautions are unrivaled by any of our competitors. If Blizzard implements changes that will put your game account at risk, we can quickly adapt to the situation to ensure our customers are protected in the future. None of our competitors can come close to us.
How to protect your gaming account
Ensuring that your gaming account is protected is our top priority. We’re here to help you have fun, hopefully for months or even years to come. Here are my recommendations to help protect your game account:
1. We take significant proprietary precautions to protect your game account, but please consider account suspension or ban if our services are detected. If you are not prepared to take this risk, consider using a second game account to reduce your risks. This will also allow you to play while we work on your order.
2. Restrict our services to about 12 hours a day. We have the ability to work on your order 24/7 upon request, but we do not recommend it. By playing on the account 24/7, our services may be detected. We encourage and recommend that you play with your character between sessions so that you can see your progress or just play as you normally would.
3. Learn how to use the password recovery tool before placing your order (ie http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/loginsupport/password.html – will open a new window). If you ever suspect a security problem with your account, immediately use the tool to change your account password. Contrary to what some websites might claim, all leveling services operate overseas, this is the ONLY way to offer these services at such a low price. By exposing your game account information to internet connections abroad, you are increasing the possibility of hackers accessing your account. While the probability is still small, it is greater because hackers can target Internet bottlenecks accessed by power-leveling offices abroad.
Responsibility, honesty and trust
Our ultimate goal at PGMx is to change the way people think about MMORPGs and the secondary market, especially game publishers. We live in a global economy and constantly outsource tasks/jobs abroad that we don’t want to do. Why do our games have to be any different? Not everyone has the desire to put in the enormous amount of time that is required to advance in MMORPGs. The irony is that the game publishers themselves outsource the work for their games, and yet they don’t want players to do it on their game.
What’s even more ironic is that policing the game to prevent this from happening is completely unnecessary. Of course going after players who use hacks etc. It’s important, but how does a player who keeps quiet and doesn’t talk much hurt the game? It doesn’t. If anything, a player who outsources services will have to deal with the social consequences with in-game friends. Of course, the services can be discreet, but it is impossible for a foreign worker to act exactly as the player would. The players actually police themselves.
We want to use our years of experience as the internet’s original professional power leveling company to bring responsibility, honesty, and trust to the MMORPG aftermarket. I hope you found this article informative. If you have any related questions or concerns, please direct them to [email protected]. I’d be happy to answer any questions, and may consider a future article based on these questions.
