Secondly, a great many objections to company-sponsored RMT are based around how a system like that would be glommed onto existing game designs. That does present significant difficulties, I agree. However, as I stated, I believe that, just as designers always say, RMT problems are a design issue and design changes need to be made in relation to it. The progress here, though, is far too slow based on how long we have been discussing this issue.

Finally, I fail to see any catastrophic consequences to EXPERIMENTING with company-based RMT. Designated servers, etc. It’s not disputable that there is a subset of MMO players, caught up in designed grind, who are willing to pay to move faster through it. It’s not disputable that those who break Terms of Service(s) to supply that demand can be disruptive to “honest” players. It is also my contention that very little is being done on the design side to alleviate these issue. Diku-grind, over and over and over.

Company-sponsored and controlled RMT would take design and implementation adaptations, yes. But many companies could experiment TODAY if they had the willpower. One caveat, of course, being legal issues that I’m not qualified to speak to.

Finally, whether I “should know better” or not is debatable. I’ll be the last person to pretend to be a game industry expert. But I have seen what the current RMT situation does to MMO communities and the costs that companies incur because of it. And up close, too. I think there’s a better way.

The economy is broken. Always has been, but it isn’t RMTs fault, it is the fault of the farmers, both the hardcore gamers, and the RMT ones.

I’ll support a crusade against RMT as soon as there is some regulation placed on the hardcore players first. Maybe limit it so that they can’t sell anything for more than twice what a vendor would pay. A player may not loot more than x gold worth per day. Regulations that will keep the economy at a reasonable level. Sounds like it would drive them away, and unfortunate, but if you want to fix the economy that is where we start…not with RMT.

I don’t mind experiencing the content the way it was meant to be experienced, and I’m not competitive enough to really care that other players have access to the phat loot I’ll never have.

I think you were meant to experience phat loot. You deserve to buy epix. You’re a hero of Azeroth and should be a badass. If you don’t happen upon the best loot for your level yourself, you should have some central place to purchase it from someone who happened upon an extra, hey maybe an auction house or something. And the price should be worthy of the item. Unfortunately there is so much gold amongst the people with all the time that they can pay and demand rediculous prices, not just reasonably high ones. So, unfortunately for you and me both, we aren’t experiencing the content the way it was meant to be. We suffer a second/third class citizenship in a game where we are supposed to be the heroes!

I think you might have misunderstood me. I meant that the argument “it’s against the rules, that’s why you don’t do it” is intellectually unsatisfying to me. It has the same appeal as “the sky is blue because God made it so.” I am not inclined to cheat, but I’m also not inclined to accept simple answers to complex problems.

But just so we understand each other, no, I do not encourage my children (or myself) to cheat, lie, etc. Questioning authority does not mean to automatically reject authority. It just means that you should know why you’re following the rules that you’re following.

As to your larger point, I mostly agree with you. But there are times when the rules must be broken. Acts of civil disobedience come to mind. I’m not comparing RMT to civil disobedience, I’m just saying that there are times when breaking your word is the nobler thing to do. I don’t have an in-game example of this so maybe my point is moot.

Games are a bit different from society in that many of the decisions we make every day are made for us in the game. In WoW for example (or any other MMO) they didn’t have to write a rule into the ToS that says you may not outright kill someone in your own group, because you’re physically unable to do so. You can question that authority all you want, and even write a white paper on why that rule teh sux0rz, but it’s not so much a law as a physical property of the universe. You might as well rail against gravity. In fact I believe “FUCK GRAVITY” is Abalieno’s next blog post, right after he really really really no shit I’m totally quiting for reals this time quits this time.

But when it comes to things we can control, such as RMT, I think it’s always a good idea to question the status quo. It’s why Bughunter and I can spar over it, and quite frankly I welcome the debate. With the “it’s against the rules” argument, the debate goes away.

For what it’s worth, even if I concluded that RMT is an ok thing to do, I most likely wouldn’t do it anyway. I don’t mind experiencing the content the way it was meant to be experienced, and I’m not competitive enough to really care that other players have access to the phat loot I’ll never have. I never max my toons anyway, so meh.

“I don’t like RMT, but I’ll be the first to say that the “it’s against the rules” defense is not satisfying in the least. I teach my kids to “question authority,” not to blindly follow the rules.”

Do you teach them to keep their word? That their word has some value? If they give their word that they won’t do something that they then really shouldn’t do it? It’s not that it’s against the rules that is the ethical problem here, it’s that in order to play you state that you will follow those rules. Questioning authority is fine and all, but somewhere people also need to account for their own integrity or suffer the consequences. If your word is no good, then the consequences are much farther reaching than just screwing up games. Once you begin to lie to people - once your word is no good - it will effect every relationship in your life. The people around you will realize that you aren’t trustworthy and they will begin to deal with you as not being trustworthy. I think that this is where people pay for lacking integrity, in the relationships with people they love, or respect, or merely have to deal with on a daily basis. Saying that it’s just a game so having given your word doesn’t mean anything really just shows the value you have for your word ( little or none ) and indicates that you will be suffering for it elsewhere when this becomes apparent to those you lie to. Treating it like it doesn’t mean anything is a justification that liars use to continue with their behavior, but it doesn’t help them with the consequences. It’s not an authority issue, it’s an integrity issue.

Also, do you teach them to follow the rules in sports? On doing their chores? When writing papers for school? In short does questioning authority give them justification for cheating? Most rules are there for a reason. Cheating and chalking it up to questioning authority seems a particularly lame excuse for breaking them. I think that breaking rules before engaging in an in-depth investigation for their existence is more likely a mistake than following them untill you can judge their reason for being in an informed manner. Even after being informed, you still run up against that once you say you will be bound by a rule, breaking it now makes a liar and a cheat out of you. Blowing off the rules you’ve agreed to follow should be something very rarely done, and with great trepidation. It leads to integrity issues which lead to RL problems.

Moxcamel, it isn’t the RMT gold farmers who are buying the golded toilet seats (I don’t really care what item we go with as long as it has an obsurd price). It is the players.

I thought we’d established that.

The hardcore players who have been farming instances or rare drops, are the people who have the gold to pay for the rare loot that they want. It’s the hardcore farmers I find camping every important world mob, not the RMT guys.

In general, players camp boss mobs for items. RMTers don’t generally camp bosses because selling gold is much more profitable than selling items. They’re not camping the bosses, they’re out killing easier stuff 24×7.

Just because the game designers might say so (and they don’t all agree on this point), doesn’t mean RMT screws up the economy.

Hmmm. When I said “question authority,” I wasn’t saying to disbelieve authority even in the face of all logic. If you accept that MMOs have an economy, then you have to accept that the economy obeys basic economic rules, otherwise it’s not an economy. And one very basic economic rule is that when you inject vast sums of unsupported currency into an economy, inflation happens. Inflation screws up economies. You can disbelieve if you like, but it doesn’t change the facts. If you think it’s just a pretend economy and therefore not subject to real economic rules then play a game of Monopoly sometime, only instead of collecting $200 every time around the board, collect $20,000.

As for all game designers not agreeing on RMT hurting in-game economies, I’ve never heard that. I’ve heard them say they should try to get in on the fun, like with Station Exchange, but I’ve never heard of a real game designer saying that RMT is not an economy-destroying force. If you can cite, I’d love to read it. I’m not being crass, I really would like to know. But also keep in mind that there are some “scientists” who don’t yet believe in the theory of evolution or global warming.

Just because the game designers might say so (and they don’t all agree on this point), doesn’t mean RMT screws up the economy. Even if it was impossible to RMT (some made up scenario somehow), the economy would still get screwed up, because there are people playing the game for rediculously different amounts of time. This makes it so that the hardcore screw up the economy for the casual. Meanwhile the hardcore probably think the economy is just fine, because they have plenty of gold for what they want.

The decent enough point of “It’s against the rules” should have been where this ended. There isn’t a good reason for it to be against the rules, but against the rules it is, and thus it’s cheating.

I don’t like RMT, but I’ll be the first to say that the “it’s against the rules” defense is not satisfying in the least. I teach my kids to “question authority,” not to blindly follow the rules. But hey, if blindly following the rules keeps somebody from ruining a game that I play, then I got no problem with that. But seriously I think it’s important to have the RMT discussion and not just place blind trust in the ToS. If I thought RMT didn’t hurt the games I play then I wouldn’t care if people did it or not, even if it were against the rules. I might even buy some for myself. But it does hurt the game.

Saying that Dragon’s example of the rare item sales is simple supply and demand is wrong. It’s nothing like iPods. It’s like selling an iPod for $100,000 is what it is.

This is really nit-picking. My point was that iPods are overpriced because people want them, not because they’re the best. You’re $100,000 number is arbitrary and meaningless with no context. If iPod doesn’t suit you as an analogy, then go with golden toilets or Ferraris. My point was that people who can afford style over functionality will do so, and that’s all part of supply and demand.

RMT is just against the rules. Doesn’t screw up the economy or make you question the ability of the player you are talking to, but it’s against the rules

/em lifts eyebrow
Any game designer will tell you RMT screws economies up. It can’t *not* screw an economy up. Whoever is telling you otherwise is probably trying to sell you gold.

Saying that Dragon’s example of the rare item sales is simple supply and demand is wrong. It’s nothing like iPods. It’s like selling an iPod for $100,000 is what it is. Much fewer people will have them, and in the MMO world those people are the ones who farmed gold for 24×7 (damaging the economy for everyone else) and I don’t mean the RMT farmers. The economy is screwed up in most MMOs and it’s just as much the hardcore as it is the RMT gold farmers that are doing it. Making RMt against the rules, if you could crack down on it, would make screwing up the economy the sole domain of the hardcore. Congrats, fewer people are allowed to mess up the experience for everyone.

I can only partially agree with the thought that buying a character messes up the social dynamic. We’re playing with 12 year olds for crying out loud! We’re also playing with members of your family, who even if they did earn each of those levels, you probably don’t want to rely on them in a tough raid. They did the time, but they still can barely play their character. Some of the purchased characters know how to play way way better than some of those who “earned” their levels.

RMT is just against the rules. Doesn’t screw up the economy or make you question the ability of the player you are talking to, but it’s against the rules…that’s all. I’d hate if someone was making money off of my hard work too…hey wait a minute, let’s make being a CEO against the rules too.

You’d still have the issue of account selling.

Account selling in SWG* was, iirc, mainly limited to unlocked Jedi rather than other characters. Other classes did get sold but not so much because of their “level” or class but because of the amount of many in the bank and the items they had which, following on from your example of an itemless/moneyless game, wouldn’t be a problem.

I have been thinking of something similar but it wasn’t item-less, it was just that items were tools and not essential and certainly didn’t give you a distinct and imbalanced advantage over another player.

*pre NGE, obviously.

Okay I was going to call you stupid and make you run away from this blog like a little girl, but since you asked nicely I won’t go Abalieno on you.

Hey now. I didn’t run away. I gracefully exited. Even with the toilet paper hanging from my shoe, it was still graceful. *Graceful* goddamit!