No work, all reward: having it handed to you

I feel like, at one point or another, most people are given the opportunity to skip an incredible amount of work or time investment by having a character or some other costly consideration passed to them freely. Whether it’s in a game completely new to you, or a game that you’ve been playing for years, this is a pretty common situation, and I’m curious to learn how other people feel about it.

I myself have inherited several EQ2 accounts with high level characters on them (well, high level at the time; this was before DoF), WoW accounts with high characters and valuables and, most recently, a high(er) level character in a MUD. In each of these cases I’ve felt empty and unclean at the prospect of reaping the benefits of someone else’s time. It doesn’t matter whether the thing in question cost money, either; there’s always the opportunity for anyone to log on to ebay or playerauctions and walk away with a “pimpin’ toon”.

Is there any sense of accomplishment felt after doing this? Even if you were to play that character for the rest of your days, is it truly yours? When people mess up in raids or act uncharacteristically in game, they’re often asked if they are from ebay, or if they just bought the account. Maybe the reason they get asked this is because everyone in their guild is a douchebag, or maybe it’s because it’s extremely difficult for most people to achieve a decent level of play with a character that isn’t their own. I feel rather strongly about this, because every time I’ve been given a character it’s always felt empty and pointless, more like a joke than a legit “transfer”. I feel more like a circus clown who’s learned a new trick and never really expect other players to take me seriously. Sure, you can transfer the character, but you can’t transfer the experience itself.

On the flipside, my view on RMT (real money transactions) in games (that is, buying in-game items for out-of-game money) is completely opposite. I really think there’s something fundamentally different between buying a character and buying something for your character, though.

I’m sure there are success stories of people switching characters. I’m also sure that there’s a difference between buying a new character to play permanently versus buying a new marginal character. I suppose my main personal gripe lies with buying a character to play as a main when that character is higher level than you’ve achieved yourself (meaning you skip content, the closest thing you can really do to cheating in an online game). How does everyone else feel about this? This seems like one of those taboo topics that everyone’s on the hush-hush about.