Jan 6th 2011, 1:32:46
And not necessarily to speak for Dragon, but to speak as one of those people who didn't like self-farming and has since utilized it, it's more a pragmatic view.
The folks in LaE were the big boys on the server and no one wanted to mess with them, because they were great netters and although they were never tested, they had a lot of good warriors too and most likely could have put up a mean fight.
If alliances like PAN and TKO wanted to compete for TNW, ANW, Top 10s and even Top 100s, they either would have to declare war on LaE or resort to self-farming as well. Being netting clans with little interest in warring (not to mention, being in PAN now, I can say I believe we were pacted to LaE pretty much every set, so it would have broken a pact), war was unlikely, so more clans self-farmed. It especially spread around the server after the LaE cheating scandal, which redistributed a significant amount of the netting talent on the server, but also redistributed a lot of people who wanted to self-farm.
As Warster said, if all the major clans were willing to put severe limits on self-farming, I'd be willing to fight for that in PAN as well. However, part of the fun of this game for me is trying to get top 10 countries and trying to help my alliance win TNW. If I'm unable to compete without self-farming, it becomes less fun for me.
Besides, ultimately, there's always going to be a new reason to complain about how someone got a huge country.
Someone does a huge oil buyout? Put an asterisk next to it!
Someone self-farms up to 5M acres and wins the set by basically stockpiling land? Put an asterisk next to it!
What if I get together with a friend in TKO and we trade hits all set long to build up ghost acres and get fat? Is that worthy of an asterisk?
Ultimately, someone's always going to have a problem with how someone else plays.
Just play the game in a way that is within the rules and makes you happy. If anyone else has a problem with you for doing that, screw them.