I recently traded 5 Wyvern Packs to hatch my Sea Dragon with another players Aqua Dragon. I saw nothing wrong with it as his stats were MASSIVE and my Sea Dragon was a joke compared to it. I ended up getting an Aqua Dragon of my own and after purchasing the Mega Snacks to get it up to Epic, it has Spritely, Health Gift, Pain Giver and Cloud O' Bugs (May Cast Locust Swarm). Now, my ethics question would be, would it be wrong to ask people for compensation to let them hatch with my Aqua Dragon if I know going in that I'll be trashing the egg immediately. It's 72 (26), so not much is stronger than it, and if the other pet has a talent I'm interested in (like May Cast Tower Shield) I wouldn't ask for the pack on top of it. But I had a player who is trying to build up a piggle to be an elite pet (IE have the piggle with great talents). There's no way I'm going to spend 30,000 gold on something I know right away I'm going to have no interest in. He's going to get something good out of it as the stats would be shared, but what's in it for me other than losing a nice chunk of gold? Any thoughts?
Well I don't think there is anything wrong with negotiating with other players to hatch and asking for some (a few) treasure cards if you have a really strong pet. That is, as long as you are not being a jerk about it and you are truly interested in hatching a pet. However I think asking for crown items or gifting in return for hatching would generally be concidered wrong behavior; especially if your motivation is to obtain gifts rather than hatch.
I'm not certain anyone can really supply an answer to that. I'd explain to the person that wants to hatch with you that it's a waste of your gold, but i personally wouldn't ask someone to gift me a crowns item because that's real money (albeit not much for one pack). Gold can be replaced more easily than real money. -etherchaos
In the other mmo I play there is no way to trade cash shop items for ingame items. the GMs there say that since there is no ingame support for this type of deal it is illegal. ie in that game they ban people for doing what you are asking about.
When people complain about it on the site forum, the GMs for that game point out that there is no way for either side to guarantee the other will keep their word. People still do it though, and a lot of them get cheated.
It seems many wizards have come to the forums to complain about getting cheated out of treasure cards, gifted items, etc. While if you honestly pay up with your end of the bargain, no harm no foul. However, each day more and more wizards are turned off by this type of transaction, since there are no guarantees. Even Prof. Greyrose and Zeke have discouraged wizards from trading treasure cards on the promise of crowns gifts or hatching.
It may not be that it is unethical, but because of unethical behavior before, you might be hard pressed to get someone to take your offer.
I have nothing to offer to the specifics of this post (I have yet to hatch a pet with anyone), but I wanted to weigh in and say that I think it's cool that the original poster is even asking a question about game ethics--I wish more people spent a few moments to ponder these sorts of questions. :-)
