In which I crush misguided game designer’s dreams of teh fat lewt
Your cheatin' heart will pine some day
And crave the love you threw away.
Found on Scott's blog : SOE game designer Dan Rubenfield has conceded the war on gold farmers. Dan's advice to game producers:
So you want to beat them and make cash on the side? Change the playing field. You sell the items. You sell the gold. They drop their prices? You drop yours. Make it easier and cheaper for these players who want to spend the money to buy from you instead of the third party.
His logic is almost iron-clad. A producer that can undercut the cost of hiring third-world gold farmers has essentially wiped the competition off the face of the world. No more raid campers, no more annoying trade-window popups, no more barely legible /tell or /broadcast announcing their wares. Everybody wins, right? Well, certainly the game company wins. Not having farmers means not having to field the angry support calls and emails, which saves money on customer support. And because the game company is now in the RMT biz, they're making more money.
Cost savings and an additional revenue stream, which will directly benefit you the player, because you'll be charged less per month on your subscription.
Right?
Uh…right?
Bullshit.
There's one party that this is good for, and even that's only in the short term:
Stop looking at this as a behavioral problem. Look at this as a competitive business venture and you’ll whomp the everlasting shit out of these guys.
"But Amber," you protest. "You can't argue that eliminating the gold farmer means better access to raid bosses, right?"
To you, disembodied voice, I say again: bullshit. Oh yeah, your raid boss won't be camped, for sure. But um…exactly who are you going to group with to kill that raid boss? And why would you do it? How many people are going to spend 3-4 hours or more going after a raid boss, and how many people are just going to buy the damn drop from the game store? You think putting together a 30-40 person raid group is tough right now? Try getting a raid group together when it's easier to pay the $20 or whatever to the game store for that raid drop that you might otherwise have to raid 10 or more times to get as a drop.
"But Amber," you whine again. "I don't have a lot of time to play, so buying gold helps me stay competitive."
Again, oh ghostly one, I call bullshit. Let's for one minute suppose that buying gold really does help you stay competitive. So you gotta get you some of that Ebay gold lovin'. Well why do you suppose it works right now? Stay with me here. Let's suppose you all of a sudden had access to a million dollars. (non-US players feel free to convert ). That would be pretty cool right? Now imagine if everyone–everyone–had access to a million dollars. What do you suppose that does to the cost of a Big Mac? Or, back to the virtual world, a sword? So big deal, prices go up so you buy more gold, right? Yeah, and so does everyone else. Pretty soon you're spending big bucks just to stay competitive. Oh, and try this one on for size. What if everyone in the world had access to a million dollars except you? Yeah, that would kinda suck huh?
And then, at some point, the game designers have a decision to make. Inflation is rampant. Do they raise prices in their game stores? Oh, bright idea. Now the gold farmers return, because they can compete again. (although, as we'll see, they'll never really leave.)
You could always go back to hunting for your items, like in the good 'ol days. Maybe with inflation so rampant you can even get a group of players together to go raiding. It's too bad you can't go PvP'ing or whatever the end-game is though. But the end-game, sorry Tiny Tim. That shit's reserved for the players who can afford to shell out hundreds of real-life dollars. Oh sure, you'll make it there eventually. You'll wait around for hours trying to dredge up a raid group of other have-nots, and then spend even more hours griding through desolate content. The raid boss will be defeated, and if you're lucky you'll get a drop. If not, you'll wait more hours, and grind more hours, all the while hearkening back to the day when you could just buy some gold off Ebay and not have to do all that raiding shit.
And let's consider something else: The gold farming industry are not stupid people. If you think they're going to accept the fact that they've just been out-priced and move on to something more lucrative like making shoes, you'd better think again. Au contraire, Dan says:
If you run the game, your cost of goods for item sales will ALWAYS be lower than the gold farmers.
To which I respond, there is no shortage of poor people on this planet. There are tens of millions of people on this planet who would love for nothing more than to sit in front of a computer all day for a dollar. Or less. If Sony wants to price platinum at $2, RMTers are going to find a way to sell it for $1. Or $0.50. Or a nickel. Or whatever it takes. Trying to compete on price is a losing proposition. The RMTers will always win that game.
Finally, let's take a look at "legitimate" RMT in action. Currently over at Station Exchange, 5 plat being auctioned on the Vox server is about to close at $20. Or you can "Buy it now" for $25. That seems to be about the going price. Let's head over to Ebay. If you play on Antonia Bayle you can buy 30 plat for $30. So bring to me the logic of why exactly I would play on Vox where I pay five times more than I pay on Ebay? Because my transactions are guaranteed by SOE? I've got news for Sony. Most players who buy gold don't buy from fly-by-nighters. Take a look at the Ebay feedback on these guys. There are no negative feedbacks. They're not about to bite the hand that feeds them. Sorry Sony, but Station Exchange is a failure. And it fails because it's built on a false premise.
Of course, I'm not saying that 3rd party RMT is a good thing either. Not even remotely. I stand firmly in the camp against selling in-game items for real-world money in any form. Clearly the situation right now is far from adequate. RMT is ruining the games we play, and to give Dan his due, designers are racking their brains trying to figure out a solution. But becoming a part of the problem is not a solution. Becoming part of the problem is a failure of imagination, and it will destroy the games you love, not to mention sell you, the player, out for a few extra coins in the company's pockets.
I quit EQ2 the first time because of Station Exchange. Yes it only affected a couple designated servers, and was completely voluntary. I even consoled myself with that knowledge for awhile when I came back to the game. I left again after Sony destroyed crafting, but I've since come to my senses, and wouldn't return even if they fixed crafting. As long as Sony or any other company endorses RMT, I won'
t play their games. And I don't think I'm the only one.
In the short term, embracing RMT may seem like it's fixing the problem. But in the long term, it's bad for everyone, and it's bad for gaming.
June 29th, 2006 at 4:55 am
Plat on Vox is more expensive for two reasons:
1)Vox in a younger server. This reduces supply.
2)Plat is resellable. This increases it’s utility to the holder, and hence demand.
Also, from my experience of both games RMT is far more prevalent and disruptive to the game in WoW than in EQ2 (although I’ve never been on an exchange server).
Given that RMT is _going_to_happen_anyway_ I guess I don’t see a problem with licensing it. (If a game seriously crushed the RMT operations that would be even better, but I haven’t seen that happening anywhere.)
There’s a big difference between allowing players to trade between themselves through your portal (a little inflationary) and using the magic wand of the SQL query to create stuff to sell to players (very very inflationary).
I take it you will also boycott Eve-online, that popular poster child with an officially sanctioned ISK for cash underbelly?
June 29th, 2006 at 7:18 am
Aceris has a point that there is a large difference in the inflation which would be caused between simply creating items to sell, or just providing in-game players a legit forum for buying/selling their thing with out of game money. It seems to me that there is a larger issue with post-implementation: you can’t change something drastic with a game’s economy after it’s in progress without pissing off a lot of people and/or breaking the system.
One of the simple and obvious solutions which might cut down on the illegal trades is reduction of value, meaning your gold/platinum/money is worth more to you then it is to anyone else. Much like an exchange rate, what’s 500 gold to you is only 350 to anyone else when you try to trade/sell it. This puts more emphasis on self-made worth, and I fully acknowledge that if it were implemented in WoW or EQ2 it would cause a huge ruckus, and indeed it doesn’t even solve the problem it simply slows it down. But in a NEW game, this could be implemented at launch and theoretically reduce the amount of illegal trade. (You would have to provide an in-house transfer house that reduces the conversion rate, to encourage players to trade legally through your game company rather then on E-Bay)
It’s like this: a gold-farmer would have to earn 500 gold to sell it as 350 gold, which would initially make its cost higher. If you’re looking to buy gold, why would you pay 500 gold’s worth of money just to get 350 when you can just go work for yourself and make the 350+?
I certainly don’t think this is an end-all solution, it’s just a hypothesis at this point really. In the end the economy would probably balance out much like Amber said, but who knows?
June 29th, 2006 at 8:30 am
One thing you miss about haveing RMT actually built in to games by design is the posibility of losing the people you most want for your playerbase. I am not going to pretend that no decent people buy gold. It would be foolish and false. On the other hand, the people most likely to object to real life wealth = in game success are going to fall into two camps: those who have no money ( decent or not ) and those who think it’s wrong and object on ethical grounds. The latter are the sort of generous, well manered, decent human beings that make MMORPGs better places to be. A lot of them will not want to play your game if there is any alternative where they don’t feel they have sacrificed their dignity to in order to play. I agree with Amber, I won’t play a game where RMT is designed in purely on principal, and principled players are who other principled players are looking for to play with. You end up with a player base that is less likely to give a shit about other possibly unethical behaviors if you eliminate the ones who care. I understand making money is the point of these companys, but I also think that making money through unethical behavior is a bad business practice. It will come back to bite you, someway, somehow.
June 29th, 2006 at 9:17 am
Aceris:
1) Well, let’s look at The Bazarr then. It’s been around for about a year, yes? 20 plat with a “buy it now” price of $110.00, or $5.50 per plat. Or go to Ebay and buy 10 plat for $30 on Antonia Bayle. That’s $3 per plat. I’m paying almost double to play on Station Exchange servers.
2) Who resells plat? Is there really a market for coin speculation on the Station Exchange servers? People usually buy plat because they want to use it, not re-sell it.
Sweetmeat:
Well said. Something I should have addressed in my post, because it’s absolutely true. I think game companies don’t appreciate or understand this facet of the equation, because it’s so intangible. But I do believe that the quality of the player base has a lot to do with player retention and the “halo” effect of convincing your friends and family to purchase accounts.
June 29th, 2006 at 9:54 am
There’s no need to rack their meager brains to find a solution, they could just stop creating the problem. If your “game” is centered around the aquisition of stuff, then of course people will buy and sell it for real money. So make you game centered around doing stuff instead of having stuff. A nice side effect is that you will end up with a game, instead of a mindless chore that can only be referred to as a “game” with the quotes.
June 29th, 2006 at 12:03 pm
The only want to really stop the farmers is to make everything in game non-tradable, and then police account ownership. Tracking accounts switching hands is easier than tracking if a player trade involved out of game transactions.
Sadly, RMT is the way things are going because the model has worked well in other markets and frankly, far too many people are willing to exchange cash to remove effort. Some family, friends and I started playing Puzzle Pirates on the doubloon oceans specifically so it would be “free”. I puzzle and play poker, and when I need to I buy doubloons from other players. My brother always seemed to have less time to puzzle and earn cash, so he went and bought 70 doubloons from the game company. *shrug* Now he’s got more stuff than me, but I still suspect I’m having more fun.
June 29th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
Underlining most people’s opinion on this subject from my experiences is that the “legit” players feel that their actions of leveling, earning loot, exploring the world, etc. is devalued when you put a real world price on it by third party or in house. Take the example of buying a horse in WoW. The times resisting to visit the Auction House, selling off items, trying to borrow gold from guildmates. Compare that to asking yourself one day “is that horse worth that much real life money?”, and answering yes.
I don’t see RMT ever going away. Gamers should just listen to their mothers and surround themselves with other good gamers.
June 29th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
If you’re buying money and items, you’re saying “there is no fun in the game. the only fun is having more stuff”. Eventually you have all the stuff, and then you’re done, right? YOUR goal in the game was to shorten the time between having no stuff and having all the stuff. Everything ELSE that happened, like grouping, socializing, adventuring, helping others, were just useless encumbrances on getting more stuff.
I’ve seen lots of these kinds of people. They play, they get their stuff, get bored with no more stuff to get, and either start an alt so they have someone to get stuff for, or quit.
They tend to get upset when someone else gets stuff they wanted. No point in naming names, you wouldn’t know them, but they’re easy to spot.
If playing the GAME isn’t fun, re-examine why you play. Each item I got for my first EQ character, I could tell you how she got it, where she was. The whole story behind it. I had a lot more fun getting those things than someone who just wrote a check.
June 29th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
The other ebay-ism is buying and selling characters. That’s pretty common, since at the high end of MMOs, there’s nothing to buy or sell anyway - it’s all no trade raid gear. So you end up with a char full of someone else’s stuff.
No attachment to that character. And it shows. Back on EMarr we had a character who would buy an Enchanter, change the name to his name, tell everyone it was him, gear the character in the best stuff, sell the character and start over again.
That’s the kind of people you get if you count MMO-worth in dollars.
Guild Wars has the right idea. You can make a maxed-out character from the start. But so can everyone else. And those who played their characters up to that level will have an advantage over you.
June 29th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
Woo, it’s been quite a while since I saw so much fallacious logic all on one page. I’m pro-RMT so perhaps I’m biased, but even then I respect the opinion of people who hate it. All I ask is that you come up with cogent arguments.
Amber:
Perhaps this is in relation to another game, but in the current MMO trend of instancing all your raid bosses, I don’t see what RMT has to do with access to raid bosses. Sure, I guess it’s possible that a guild of gold farmers could camp a world spawn and stop other guilds getting to it, but I think that’s insanely unlikely, and even if it did happen it would be one or two bosses out of all the many that are instanced.
You’re indirectly suggesting that a game based on legalised RMT would then have to find a way around 40-person raids and 40 hour investments to get an item. And that’s a bad thing?! Bring it on, I say. An MMO built around the principles of RMT wouldn’t have those huge raids, because it would defeat the entire point of their system. It’s a total non sequitur to suggest that would be a drawback when they would never implement it in the first place.
But everyone DOESN’T have access to a million dollars, or even 20 or 30 dollars. Where are you getting this from? You’re saying that a drawback to RMT is that everyone in the real world has equal wealth, which is patently absurd. Some people won’t be able to afford the $30 for some plat, let alone the $950 for a level 60 Dwarf Priest. You talk like this wouldn’t obey the simple laws of capitalism, of supply and demand. They’re not talking about giving them away for free, they’re talking about selling them.
In your opinion. Of course, your opinion couldn’t possibly be biased by the fact that you’re clearly anti-RMT, could it?!
Some of my best friends in MMOs have bought gold, and I guarantee that some of yours have too. Just because they don’t admit it doesn’t mean they don’t do it. I also have some excellent friends who are fiercely opposed to the practice, and they’re just as generous, well-mannered and decent as those who bought gold. There is absolutely no correlation whatsoever! The people who buy gold are normal, everyday people with a little disposable income. They’re not fucking gangsters peddling drugs to kids to support their plat habit for christ’s sake.
How silly of me, I didn’t realise that buying gold precluded me from joining a group! I should probably have realised when I suddenly became flagged as and the Stormwind guards attacked me!
Seriously, where the hell does logic like that come from? It doesn’t even make any sense. You’re saying that by buying an item, a person cannot have a desire to group, socialise or adventure? But, what, if I raid for 20 hours for the same item, I do want to socialise? What if I want the item to socialise with people outside of the raid? What if I’m raiding to get an item only available in a 40-man instance but which is only really applicable in PvP, where my real friends are who I want to socialise with? What if I hate my guild and only stick with them cos I fucking need them to get the items legally? Is that socialising, or is that just being polite? Apparently, by your definition, it’s more antisocial to buy the item on ebay than it is to exploit an entire guild for an item and then never raid with them again.
RMTing isn’t somehow indirectly proportionate to socialising, anymore than the bloody auction house is. I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous.
June 29th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
Joy unto you, peace and serenity, you are not of the body Dom.
This was in reference to the impetus for Dan’s article, which can be found here. Basically the gold farmers in Lineage II have destroyed raid boss camps for normal players, which are not instanced.
I’m directly suggesting that if your game includes raids which can be bypassed by legalized RMT, then getting a raid group together for the people who want to earn the item naturally will have a hard time of it. I make no statement of position on whether raids are good or bad. Just that if you want to experience the content in a non-RMT fashion, then you will have a harder time of it.
It would be patently absurd if I’d said it. But I didn’t.
One of the reasons I play MMOs is because, unlike real life, I can expect a mostly level playing field. I know it’s not truly level. Different hardware configurations, internet speed, etc introduce a lot of variability. But it’s close enough, and as close as I can reasonably expect. If a mostly level playing field isn’t important to you, then I can understand why you would support RMT. But I value the mostly level playing field, and I think most MMO players value it too.
June 29th, 2006 at 4:48 pm
RMT I say isn’t that it’s anti-social, but it’s done to socialize with the “elite” class of players in the game. Buying the best stuff to be allowed to play with the best. RMT does usually exclude a player from the, IMO, “casual” players who play games for what they are meant for: fun. The RMT is making it less fun for players who choose/forced to play “legit”.
I think most of the problem that arises is the interaction between the players who buy their way to the top and those who work their way to the top. The different values behind the decisions to buy or not to buy is the problem.
Extra Income: Wow, that’s a cool-looking weapon, what’s the stats on it?
Saving Pennies: Oh this Stick of Awesomeness +5, after my nth time in…
Extra Income: Let’s see… there the item is. Damnit, I have to wait 3 freaking days for it to be in-game mailed to me? Isn’t that unbelievable? Stupid illegal third-party farming company!
Saving Pennies: …
In the pursuit to become the elite in MMO, some people will take whatever options they have to get ahead. Taking advantage of guildmates, buying in-game money, ninja-looting, exploiting, hacking, etc. It’s not different from real life, but sure as hell people like that piss me off. I don’t really see the difference between hacking and buying in-game money in the games where the company has imposed rules against it. Both gets you ahead in the game, only that one way is easier to be caught than the other.
June 29th, 2006 at 5:22 pm
[...] Time to move on to bigger and better things, like third-party companies selling virtual MMO currency for real cash. After IGE’s acquisition of Allakhazam, many of us gamers are still sensitive to any pro-gold selling stance taken by bloggers. Thus when Dan Rubenfield posted the pompous piece of crap “In which I crush fanboi’s dreams of an equitable MMO world,” the lovely and talented Amber Night was quick to contest with “In which I crush misguided game designer’s dreams of teh fat lewt.” No offense, Dan, but I can’t possibly be objective on this issue (you got perma-linkage anyway—>). [...]
June 29th, 2006 at 7:55 pm
Okay, fair enough, your comment was game-specific. It does make sense in the context of Lineage 2, although I stand by my comment that it’s just bad game design in that example. Bad game design doesn’t make RMT itself bad, it makes bad game design bad.
Again, I sincerely doubt a game that’s based around legal RMT would then go and include the very antithesis of RMT.
It’s not a question of whether or not I want a level playing field. Obviously I do. The issue is whether or not the RMT playing field is actually any less level than the High School Kids & College Dorms Get The Best Items playing field. In my opinion RMT is probably even more level and fair than what we’ve currently got. Surely that’s where the debate is. We can’t just say “Whoop, RMT is unfair to more people, case closed”.
And yet it’s invariably the casual player who desires RMT because they don’t have the free time to farm, while the hardcore player decries it because it devalues the items they can farm.
June 29th, 2006 at 8:14 pm
Okay first I have to ask. “Lovely” sure. But “talented?” Not saying she’s not, but I need proof. What is this talent yon trackback speaks of?
Oh and gold farmers and their buyers suck. That is all.
Dave (someone stole my cool internet name)
June 29th, 2006 at 8:52 pm
Really, it comes down to economics. Let’s say something in game takes an average of 2 hours to acquire, or I can buy it for $50. If I’m a consultant that makes $200/hour, it makes sense for me buy the item since it only takes 15 minutes for me to earn that much money. (Ignoring taxes and things that make the math ugly.) If I’m a high school student making $5/hour at McDonalds, it makes sense for me to earn the item in the game since it would take me 10 hours to earn enough money to purchase the item.
So, really, RMTs are trading money for time. Until the game starts providing oral sex during gameplay, there’s little intrinsic incentive for the consultant to camp for the item. It really doesn’t matter how fun or unfun the gameplay is, the consultant could bill for 2 hours, make $400, and spend $50 of that on the item. The real problem comes when you have the poorer player willing to work for 10 hours to buy the item instead of spending 2 hours in the game: at that point you have a game that isn’t very much fun. This tends to be a self-correcting problem since if someone would rather spend 10 hours working instead of 2 hours playing, they probably won’t bother playing at all.
But, let me turn on the spigot and get it raining on the parade full-force: RMTs will become a part of nearly every game in the future. There’s a smart way to do it; unfortunately, in the short term we’re going to get a lot of people doing stupid stuff. The correct way isn’t just to make items that you could acquire normally and sell them for cash. No, the trick is to sell alternative items, and allow people to have more detailed customization options. It’s been a huge success in Korea, and it’s the only real way an indie developer can hope to get enough income for their game.
My thoughts,
June 29th, 2006 at 8:59 pm
Oops, I should have better defined “casual”.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/casual
“Being without ceremony or formality; relaxed”
Damn changing definitions of words. So many terms are highjacked, grr. It’s WoW’s fault for messing up the definition of casual.
Anyways, as for a level playing field, it’s not different to compare games to sports. Some sports players uses drugs to boost performance (yeah, I’m putting it nicely), some MMO players use unfair means to do the same. A game is a game. A game has rules to follow. Rules to keep the players safe. Rules to keep it fair. Rules to keep the game enjoyable.
Everyone does have a different way of having fun. Playing “legit”, paying for the phat loot, etc. Nothing wrong with that. But when one person’s fun interferes with another person’s fun, something must be done.
On Amber’s point of forming raids, what’s the reason to RMT in the first place? It’s to get ahead. The raids designed to be a stepping stone to the next raid can and will be skipped over by RMT-ers if possible. It means there are at least that many more players not interested in running that content.
This leads to another problem. If the company takes any big action it risks losing one paying customer or the other. In the name of profit, keep the playing field level enough that the anti-RMT keeps playing, allow RMT-ers to enjoy themselves within reasonable limits to keep playing. RMT-er gets banned, mostlikely not coming back. RMT made legal and ruins game for non-RMT-ers, mostlikely not coming back.
June 29th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
Just taking a quick look on Ebay and nearly all the stores were selling at around $3 a plat. There was a couple of scattered sales that were close to $1 per plat, but not many. On the ‘auction’ side I did see a few more people offering around $1 a plat, but not many, and generally they had low scores.
On Station Exchange I did see a fair number of people charging in the neighborhood of $5 per plat but there were plenty of bids in the $3 per plat range. I didn’t see anything in the $1 per plat range.
So overall the prices between the two actually do seem pretty close. Yes, you can save a few dollars going to EBay and the sellers seem reputable enough that it’s probably worth risking $10, if you’ve a mind to do such a thing, but you will still have to wait for them to find out about the purchase, email you, and set up a meeting. Granted, that’s not hours of time spent but it is still extra hoops to jump through, as opposed to spending a little more on Station Exchange and having it immediately transferred to your character.
Also, I don’t think Station Exchange was really created with the intent of doing in the gold farmers. It was created so that people who wanted to pay money to buy coins, items, and characters, could do so legitimately. This is a good thing because it means that people who subscribe to that philosophy have an area to play where they won’t affect the game play for those of us who dislike it.
Unfortunately since EQ2 didn’t launch with Station Exchange in place such people were already scattered across the servers. Because of friends and guilds when they make alts they will often make alts on non-Station Exchange servers, so in that aspect Station Exchange could be viewed as a failure.
However what it has done is establish a proof of concept, that such a server can be set up for a game. If future games use a similar tactic then you will have the situation that people who think RMT is OK will have a place to go to away from the rest of us. I suspect most will chose to use the server where they won’t be looked down on by the population for using RMT and where they won’t risk being banned if they are caught.
Certainly there will still be people on the other servers willing to conduct illegal RMT, whether it is to give them an edge over people who don’t believe in RMT or because their friends don’t believe in RMT and so choose a non-RMT server, but there will be less of them. With luck there may not be enough of them to support a healthy RMT since gold farmers will be faced with the choice of spending time on servers with a high concentration of people who will buy from you and where you can advertise openly or spending time on servers where there are far fewer clients and you run the risk of being banned.
I say all of this while being in the camp of non-RMT. I don’t care for it at all. However I recognize that other people feel differently and as long as their play style doesn’t impact mine (because they are on a different server) why should I care? I remain hopeful that the Exchange Server will lead to cleaning up RMT (by moving it somewhere else).
I also agree that Dan Reubenfield’s idea is seriously flawed. Printing money just leads to hyper inflation.
(Obligatory disclaimer: I am an SOE employee. I mention this since it can easily be found out and I do not want to create the belief that I am trying to ‘astroturf’. In my capacity as an artist I am completely unassociated with Station Exchange. I am speaking as a gamer with a keen interest in crafting and MMO economies and not in any way as a representative of SOE. My views are my own and do not necessarily represent those of management at SOE and my statements as to why management created Station Exchange are based on my own opinions and assumptions and not on any information conveyed to me in confidence. Side effects of my opinions may include headaches, nausea, and diarrhea. People with weakened immune systems should not pay attention to my opinions. Should side effects persist for more than a week see your doctor.)
June 29th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
[...] The other topic which has be racing through our electronic Zeitgeist is the subject of Real Money Transactions (or RMT for short). Started off by a post from Dan Reubenfield which has been answered by Amber Night, Broken Toys, Tipa, Wizzel CogWizzleton CarrierCog IV, and apparently a rabid weasel. [...]
June 30th, 2006 at 1:58 am
Responding to Brian, the number one reason I’m pro-RMT is because I want to see more free MMOs in the Korean vein. I want to download the entire game from their site and play for free with no 14 day time limit or whatever. Most Korean MMOs do this but have a big subsection of items (usually character customisation related) that can only be bought with real cash. I love that system. I think it foster opportunities for small teams to create focused and specialised games.
I really despise the current susbscription model of western MMOs because it creates a barrier for me and my friends to play together. I’m hopeful that RMT and by extension free MMOs will make it to our shores in the near future.
P.S. is it at all possible to make it impossible to hit the Submit button unless you’ve answered the math question? I keep forgetting it’s there, hitting submit and being told I didn’t answer the question. Then when I hit back my post is wiped clean and I have to start over, adding even further to my already frothy-mouthed vitriol!
June 30th, 2006 at 5:53 am
I wouldn’t know how to do that, but if there are any WordPress hackers out there that would know how, I’m open to suggestions. You can also create a reader account, and then you don’t have to do any math.
June 30th, 2006 at 8:09 am
Realize for a moment that not everyone is like you…
1. It is ignorant to assume that everyone plays the game for the same reason. It is ignorant to assume everyone finds the same things in the game fun. It is ignorant to assume having the “Stuff” and getting to the end is the main point of the game for everyone. Don’t think for a second that there aren’t people who want desperately to do the 40 man raid, but can’t be bothered to level up on this anti-RMT “level” playing field. Don’t think for a second that there aren’t people who bought the game and tried “causally” for 6 months to get to play RvR, only to realize it was just going to take too long playing the crappy part of the game, and even then they won’t have the gear to compete.
2. This is really not the thread to try to define “casual” play. I’m happy that there is an “English” dictionary around to define the word for us. To bad we aren’t speaking “English” here, we’re speaking “MMOese”, in which “casual” is defined multiple ways to mean multiple things to different people. It’s not crazy to define “casual” as those gamers don’t have a lot of free time, because they work so much to have some disposable income.
3. If you want to compare MMOs to sports go for it, but in the context of legalizing RMT, leave “performance enhancing drugs” out of it. What pro-RMT really want is to be allowed to higher the more expensive and better (more expensive) physical trainer, so that come game day, they can play at the level they want.
4. The current MMOs are anything but a “level playing field”.
I know this is going to sound crazy, but why shouldn’t I be allowed to play all the parts of a game with different alts whenever I want to? I should be allowed to level from 0 to cap with a group of friends every Thursday. I should be allowed to instantly have a level capped character to join in on the raids killing the big time monsters, and once I’ve mastered one of them I should be able to instantly have the equipment needed to take on the next one. I should be allowed to level a character solo from 0 to cap at my own pace in my spare time. I should be allowed to purchase a capped character with all the equipment of my choosing to go wage war against other players whenever the urge hits.
Explain to me please how me being allowed to do all of those things through RMT, or not, affects your fun and your gameplay.
June 30th, 2006 at 9:30 am
This is one of the reasons I enjoy COH. No loot. Very little reason for RMT. And no farmers, AFAIK.
June 30th, 2006 at 1:19 pm
“It’s not crazy to define “casual” as those gamers don’t have a lot of free time, because they work so much to have some disposable income.”
Don’t. Get. Me. Started.
June 30th, 2006 at 1:41 pm
It does come down for some people to an issue of the value of time. My brother played EQ1 for six years on and off and dragged me (kind of kicking and screaming) to EQ2 with him and his wife. He’s fairly obsessive compulsive, so he learns nearly everything there is to know about his class and the MMO he’s playing, he levels quickly and in a very focused manner. He’s an MMO player’s player….competent and group oriented, aware of what each class can do and how the game works as a whole. He’s one of those encyclopedic people who drive you nuts but you immediately go and ask when you have have a question about anything game related.
But then he’ll go through a phase in real life where he’ll need to be equally obsessive about work, and the game will be completely shelved, sometimes for months at a time. He’ll come back to find that time never stands still, and all his friends are 15 levels higher or have had the chance to accumulate some great gear (if he left with a level cap in place). He can afford a Ferrari in real life, but in EQ2, he should have to stumble along behind me with his spirit totem of the wolf, while I skim along on the flying carpet I had the time to quest?
I had this discussion with guildmates recently. You see, in EQ1, I had the trust of some very good friends who gave me the chance to play their characters. I never pretended to be anyone I was not, nor did I go raiding or grouping illicitly with people assuming I knew how to play a class I had little experience playing. But I fully believe after doing that, that after a long time in a game, your learning curve is pretty damn speedy. My brother is level 58 right now. If he were to be able to skip instantly to level 70, I think it would take him less than a week to have his character completely down pat and up to the par for raiding, assuming he could also have access to appropriate gear and skills. As in, if they could be purchased. As in, he has so little time to play, he won’t even log on for the four hours a week he can play now because he’s so far behind he can’t enjoy the activities he would like to do with the people he’d like to enjoy them with. Is it fair that he can afford to buy a Ferrari, let alone a horse with spinners in the game? I guess that depends on your view of free market economics. Is it fair that I can play EQ2 forty hours a week if I so choose? I don’t know, though I don’t have a lot of the real life bennies that he has……like a Ferrari! Though, hey! I don’t have the horse with spinners, either! Damn.
I don’t buy plat. I do understand why someone might choose to buy plat. It’s not always because they want to be the best without effort or are antisocial and want to get things the easy way….I can sincerely say that my brother bought plat in EQ1 strictly as a method of staying in the same gear range as myself and our other friends, so that he wasn’t the “token gimp” holding us back when he could play again (because he knew we’d include him as soon as he was back). And so he wasn’t the only one without a fast horse. Gotta have the horse with spinners. Damn. I should be saving my plat. Since I haven’t bought any on Ebay!
June 30th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
I like that comparision. Where it is declared illegal it’s illegal, where it is not it is not. Also in the case of SOE, I think RMT have to take place on their service or it’s against the rules. The end result is the same, could save some money too, but the process of one is declared illegal.
This one’s easy. Brought Characters, gamers behind the character is new to the character or even new to the entire game. Instead of just forming a group and instantly everyone knows generally what to do, there is a character that hinders the rest of group. (yeah, I know this is a cheap reason, dumb players are dumb players…) The concept of grouping still holds true though. I look at your class, your level, your equipment. I assume that you are level of play from you. If it turns out you perform sub-par and it leads to me wasting time, it’s not fun for me. In a 40-man raid, my spot being taken by a RMT-er with better equipment it denies me from accessing said content. In another example, in PvP, if I keep getting killed by the exact same guy over and over, I’d be pissed. Knowing that the guy has more money than I do, I’d be even more pissed.
Everyone can agree that everyone has different ways to enjoy themselves… in an MMO setting. The reason behind it doesn’t matter, if I find sharing the same virtual space with a RMT-er not fun, it’s not fun for me. If I find that paying a $1000 was so worth it for an end-game running character, it’s fun for me. The problem is the different gamers, the direct and indirect interactions of their online avatars.
July 1st, 2006 at 1:15 pm
I love you Amber.
July 22nd, 2006 at 7:15 pm
[...] Dan Rubenfield posted a controversial essay yesterday on why MMO developers should quit fighting the gold farmers and join them. Amber Night posted a brilliant rebuttal which said what I wanted to say about that better than I ever could (though, being snarky, I did post a snarky comment on Dan’s blog): I hope you [...]
September 13th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
Not too old discussion on RMT…
Pretty lively discussion over at Amber Night. Looks like I missed the boat to get in on things, so I’ll comment here.
It seems like many discussions on the topic evolve into debate on design. I don’t think it necessarily HAS to come dow…