f13.net

30 million gold... anybody with a guess as to how much that is in US dollars?  30 thousand accounts has to hurt the gold farmers though, thats lots of time and money gone.

No need to guess, just peruse the various sites to get an average price.  Just going to IGE for my server, gets a price of about $20 for 200 gold.  That makes the loss 3mil USD. Accounts are another 1.5 mil (Boxes are still going for $50, right?).

Net Loss 4.5 mil.  Question is, how badly does it actually hurt them?  No real spike in prices, last time we had this convo they were about the same.

Odds are good that the bulk of that money was deleted from the purchasers' accounts, since the farmers only hold it long enough to sell off.  So that $3 million was probably $1 million in unsold stock for the farmers, and $2 million lost by the suckers who actually paid for their gold.

All the gold deleted came of the cheater accounts.  They don't ban gold farmers and they can't ban you for having a lot of gold, they only ban the exploiters.

I know I've been out in places and seen a few "suspicious" characters in WoW running around not acting at all like humans. I send them a tell usually to see what the deal is, and if I get no reply I just report them to the GM to watch the account. I mean, I probably farm gold like two to four hours a week to keep up with my repair costs, but it's rather annoying when you see the same unguilded rogue in the same place no matter what time you show up.

Its too funny because the night before they did this I reported a farmer and got him booted from his guild. 

He was farming a mid-lvl non-instanced dungeon (Col. Kurzen quest arc in Stranglethorn).  There was four of us and needed the boss (Kurzen) to finish the quest, but we were all 37-39 and he was 48.  He was a hunter laying traps where the boss spawned so he got him every time.  We had to wait near 45mins for him to leave after repeated threats.  Not exaggerating.  He couldn't speak English, just "no/yes".  He wouldn't or couldn't understand he just needed to let us get the mob once and we could move on.  So I reported him and found and spoke to a guy in his guild doing UBRS that night.  Turns out he was an officer and they booted him instantly.  Later that night I got a GM tell from Blizzard thanking me etc.  And a follow up ticket.  Next day, I see the announcement.  So, yeah good timing all round:)  And no, I'm not against RMT's between individual players, just professional farmers.  Because honestly this guy would never have let us finish otherwise.

As someone who’s bought at least 14,000 gold across 3 different servers this brings a few interesting things to my mind.

1.   If they had that much gold in inventory, the WoW gold market is huge. Incredibly huge. In all instances I’ve bought gold, I’ve had to wait overnight while they farm it up, and that was on launch servers where they would have established farming characters. The people I’ve bought from keep low inventories specifically to avoid losing “work” in account bannings. They figure it’s better to get orders and then have their shops concentrate on those rather than just have people farm all over the servers and hope someone comes along and buys it. They only do that if there are no active orders. So taking that into account, I’m going to assume the gold that was lost was inventory on “slow” moving, low pop servers. If you factor in the gold they sell, but don’t keep in inventory the numbers are much, much larger.
 
2.   The amounts they mention pretty much prove a theory I’ve had for a while – buying gold in games is the MMO version of porn or weed. It’s something everyone acts shocked and offended about in public, but most of those people will go home and smoke a bowl and jerk off to naughty pictures or a movie. Case in point, the number of people in my ex-guild who used to bitch about my obvious gold buying and then turned around and bought gold to get their epic mount or  skill up a craft was amazing. There is just no fucking way those sort of numbers are supported by a small number of players buying gold.

3.   These account bannings are a minor annoyance. I’ve bought gold during the banning’s before and it only adds another day or two to the time it takes to get the gold while they grind up characters.

4.   Any game that has player transactions is going to have people that buy stuff for real money, and people who will supply them. There is literally nothing that anyone, player or company, can do to stop it. No matter what is done, it will happen. Even banning the accounts of people who buy won’t stop it. It will only decrease the amount of people doing it and cost the company subs.

5.   The only way to remove farming from a game effectively is for the game company itself to offer gold and item transactions for less than what a farming company can supply gold for. Which would be easy to do. Frankly, I don’t think it would screw up economies anymore than they would be otherwise, since gold purchases already exist and effect the game. There might be more of them if offered by the company, but one would assume it would be easier for them to adjust for it’s effects since they’d have rock solid numbers available about the amount of gold entering the economy through RMT.

Personally, I think game companies should sell gold and items in game. I’m surprised that no one has started, at least domestically since the Chinese games have been doing it for a while. If those WoW numbers are to be believed, Blizzard would be making millions of dollars a month just through RMT.

The biggest problem with the gold sellers isnt the farming or selling of gold, its the methods they use to get them.  Back in EQ you had the rampant assholery necessary to get the drops, training, ninjalooting, etc.  In wow its exploiting, if your guild runs zg regularly and people are trying to get DM librams to get their zg enchants you may have noticed that librams of protection cost a ton less than librams of rapidty or focus do.  You may have also noticed that mana and healing potion prices took a dive a couple months ago, same as large brilliant shards and the Ace of warlords and DM class books.  This is because farmers using teleport exploits can easily solo the king in DM north, getting a full chest of tribute loot with tons of potions, lots of aces of warlords and dm class books.


Flooding the economy with this items is not the same as farming gold and epics in tyrs hand like they did in the old days.  I used to think gold farmers where harmless, but after seeing the potion market completely collapse from under real alchemists because exploiters are able to flood the market with thousands of mana/health potions a day, or seeing an ace of warlords selling for 2g when every other ace is up for several hundred gold i can see why everyone wants them gone.  I'd love for blizzard to start selling their own gold at 1/10th of the prize the farmers do just to drive them out of bussiness.

Trouble is, that too harms the game.

Now, I agree with Bob that the game is being harmed already - but I don't see the guys making the game coming over to that POV.

The problem I have with this (aside from the impact farming has on the market for non-farming players) is that it seems a lot like a band-aid solution to a more fundamental problem.  MMORPGs space out your dings over long periods of time to keep you subscribed.  If you remove all the roadblocks, you'd be able to see the whole game in a few weeks.  It might be less frustrating, but it's also less profitable for Blizzard, because once you've got your uber armor, there's naught to do except stand around in Orgrimaar for a while and be admired by passers-by.  Maybe you can steamroll some PUGs in a battleground or ten, but once you've hit that last "Ding!" the cancellation button is often not far behind.

Paying real money for game money is a way to remove those roadblocks, but it comes with problems.  From the perspective of Blizzard, you've got the problem of players instantly amassing a mountain of loot and then hitting the cancel button when the realize there's nothing they can do with it.  From the player perspective, the problem is more along the lines of "why the hell am I paying money to play a game so that I can pay more money so that I don't have to play the game as much."  Blizzard (and most MMORPG companies that I know of) intentionally slows down your progress at higher levels to stretch out the length of your subscription.  For a regular player who's not buying gold for real dollars, that means that they're paying money (their subscription fees) to waste a lot of time stumbling over roadblocks that other players are bypassing.  MMORPGs are built around the concept of rewards vs. time.  If I see someone else getting more rewards but spending less time, then when I look back at the game, it starts to look unfair.  The whole mechanism underlying the entire game starts to look broken.

So, I don't think legitimizing RMT is an optimal solution from either the perspective of Blizzard or the players who don't buy gold.  It's probably different for the players who are buying gold, but they're already doing it, regardless of Blizzard's position, so what would Blizzard gain by telling them it's okay?

Blizz tried to partially solve it by limiting what you can get with just gold and by making items bind on pickup. Then you get stuff FoH ridealongs-for-cash currently happening in the other thread. There's really no easy way out.

/agree 100%.  If RMT becomes legitimized, players who don't spend buy gold/items will feel like their acheivements are hollow (because everyone has what they have in 1/8 the time), and those who do buy it will really quickly become bored.  The suggestion in the above quote is not even really potentially fun, because if everyone has the best armor and highest level, why would anyone admire you?

This is why I disagree in principle even with people being run through low level dungeons by their high level friends.  If you don't want to waste time playing the game, why play the game?

Again, this is another area where RMT via tokens is better than RMT.  If you have the player use tokens to buy good and services from other players instead of buying from the company directly, players who try to buy their way to victory end up making things better for the people who don't and basic supply and demand economics prevent it from getting out of hand.  The only thing you have to do is make sure tokens are valuable to everyone but not crippling if don't have them.

What ?  How the hell does that sort anything ?

I really don't get what you're saying, I'm not just being a prick.

So walking_wallet wants to get an uber_item. But he doesn't have the time or connections to get it himself.

The basic RMT solution is walking_wallet would go buy it directing from company.
The RMT auction solution would be to buy it from other players use an external company site. (SOEbay)
The RMT via tokens solution would be for walking_wallet to buy tokens for real money and then use the tokens to buy the item via the in game economy.

I think the later solution is superior in many, many ways.  But specifically I was responding to Jayce's "If RMT becomes legitimized, players who don't spend buy gold/items will feel like their achievements are hollow" comment.

I think the non-RMT players will be less alienated because:
a) The economic interaction is inside the game and non-RMTers can get a hold of tokens so they can participate without spending money.
b) Since items and gold aren't being created out of thin air, the RMT is less likely to screw with the in-game economy.
c) When walking_wallet does drop a huge amount of money, the non-RMTers are happy because in order to get uber_item walking_wallet has to give the non-RTMers something they want.

As an added bonus: it completely fucks professional farmers over if the token to gold excharge is easy.

Ok I read that twice and I must be missing something. How is your theoretical "token" any different than "gold" in WoW for example? Instead of buying gold to make a purchase, you buy a token to make a purchase ....what's the difference?

Taz, have you explained this so often you're missing some details in this shorthand version? I ask because I can't see how this is any different from what already happens, except that you've added what sounds like a Treasury Bond to the economy.

So players can farm or buy from other players Tokens. How's that different from farming and buying gold? The value of gold fluctuates already based on the items in the system (and the amount of gold). The value of Tokens would fluctuate as well, based on the same principles. Using a Token as an item to barter for ingame money or items is really no different than using gold to buy that item. Both the Token and the gold would be something one could buy with realworld dollars. And if you make Tokens bind on pickup, then only the farmers will get them, use them to purchase items and then just sell the items.

Thank God I wasn't the only one who didn't see the point of the idea.

It's one step removed.
Instead of a dollar's worth of gold from the company, you buy a dollars worth of tokens. Then you trade your tokens with other players to get the gold you want.  The net effect is the playerbase and in-game economy is setting the value of gold (and by proxy the items) in real world value, not the company. This is also better than RMT auction (which does adjust) because it includes the whole playerbase not just the one on the auction site.

Can't farm tokens just buy from the company.
If you can't out gold at fixed-rate to the USD because if your fixed price is too low you'll create massive inflation and if your price is too high no one will buy it and you won't make money.  If you let players trade and set the value, they'll find the sweet spot (classic supply and demand). The hard part of this system is the demand for tokens.  Puzzle Pirates creates demand for their Doubloons by requiring that everything beyond the very basic pillaging gear requires Doubloons to make.

(Sorry, lol, this why I'll never have a front page article)

Schild is quite the little editor.  And he LOVES new articles! Its his way of building an empire (and debt).

Tazelbain, based on your explanation, you're just creating a new denomination. Instead of buying 100gold from the company, players would by 1/*100 Token from the company (with the / or * based on the relative value of the Token to the general state of the economy). How Tokens enter the system does not change how they'll be affected by it. They just become another way of explaining relative worth because, in the end, they're still used to buy a rare or consumable good. 1 Token = 100gold = T1 Robe.

That the player buys the Token from the company doesn't really achieve anything. The player could just buy 100gold from the company.

They could also buy 100gold from IGE et al. It's not like ignorance even applies. No matter of one's experience in the genre, everyone in these games is merely one or two conversations away from knowing how to RMT and with whom.

The only way to "solve" RMT is to remove trade altogether. But that sucks for the genre, so the second best is to have good enough tools built to track the activities of RMTers and ban them instead. In reality though, even removing RMTers doesn't remove the true cause of all of this, which is Farming. But to removing farming would require the same wholesale gutting of the very features that make this genre unique anyway.

People just need to suck it up and deal. All these years into it I still want to know how RMTing truly screws people out of their stuff. I haven't yet read anything that either couldn't be blamed on farming, or was just merely jealousy with a crapload of words wrapped around it.

Inflation.

Sure, you'll have it when people farm on their own normally, but when professional farmers get added in to the mix, things inflate exponentially.  If the Devs adjust for this, it means normal people HAVE to buy gold to keep-up with the costs.  If the devs keep things at a cost to account for 'normal' farming pace of a few hours a week, then gold becomes meaningless as the catasses and pros amass huge quantities of it.

The other option is to remove an economy, and go the direction normal people seem to want.  Mobs drop what they have on them, and items become meaningless because there's billions of them out there.  Not really RPG-ish, though.

ya, but real money is based on real economy and game money is based on game economy.  It's better not to hard link them. Let each economy figure itself out and let the players figure out the exchange rate.
Or buy pot.
RMT isn't a problem in my book.  Professional farming is.  I bet a well-turned company RMT could always undercut third-party RMT and destroy pro-farmers.
I have no problem with people who buy themselves uberness as long it doesn't fuck up the economy in the process.

Here is another question I have about this approach: how do you make tokens valuable in the first place?

Every item in a game has some vendor value that pegs it to the gold standard.  Things that are useful to make other things (wool cloth, arcanite bars) have value over the vendor value.  Gold has intrinsic value because it is used to buy services and items from NPCs at the very least, which turns it into the standard of the realm for cash transactions among players too.

If your tokens would not have a cash value (so as not to peg it to any certain exchange rate) and would not be useful to make certain items, then how would they gain traction as an exchange standard?

Tazel, the only way this works is if the in-game items are assigned a set value and players can only trade them for that amount or an item of equal value.  Also, gold and tokens cannot be given to others.

Why?  An item's worth could fluctuate from 1 token to 1000 tokens under your system.  The players set the values.  However, the cost of buying the token will remain constant.  If a token is very expensive it may keep inflation down somewhat, but it would also cause farmers to make sure they try to sell every single item they find.  Common items then become dirt cheap and way too plentiful, while rare items become farmed/camped for the $100 quick payout.  If tokens are cheap, then inflation can still happen.

Essentially a token system is like having D&D's coinage system of gold and copper, with one form of coin you can legally acquire from the DM by a bribe.  It still does not lead to a healthy economy and people will still be jerks.

PS - That picture of Ann Coulter scares me.  She looks way too much like me in it.  I don't want to ever be mistaken for her.  :oops:

Ya, but your idea doesn't do that because it still requires real money to buy Tokens. This alone links it to the very inbalance you're trying to solve.

Hehe, there you go, you were obviously baked when you came up with this "token" idea because it's totally broken, as Darniaq explained better than I could.  :-D



I agree. Of course, I've purchased gold, to afford an epic mount, and to afford my latest RP characters "breathing room" to not worry about saving for mounts, and being able to get decent gear at the AH along the way to smooth my path. 200 gold per character sets you up nicely to gain a "head start" but certainly doesn't make you daddy warbucks. The bottom line for me is it significantly enhances my gaming experience, and the ultimate effect ingame is not significantly different than the potential windfall of getting a Glowing Brightwood Staff drop for you - a pure luck mechanic - and instantly making 900 gold+ at the auction house. Though masses of buyers probably effect inflation in some measure, I think it's inevitable with existing core game mechanics, and my personal contribution to the problem is insignificant.

Of course that's a totally self serving viewpoint, we rationalize what we want to do. What's new?

You are right! But please whatever you do don't play Puzzle Pirates, witnessing a broken idea function can cause your head to explode.
There are plenty of MMOGs with items that have no vendor value.  Making tokens valuable would depend on the nature of your game and your revenue model.  If you are being heavy-handed you'd make tokens essential to advancement and gateways to epic content. If you want to take a light touch, you'd have the tokens redeemable for convenience items(quick travel, low downtime). The key would be to make the tokens desirable at all stages of a charater's life.
She's like Skeletor but with a deeper voice.

R U a hot fem IRL ?

(sorry, could not resist)

Anyway.

I never played Puzzle Pirates enough to be involved in that token stuff, but EVE does something similar.

CCP (the company behind EVE) does allow the exchange of in game money for Game Time Codes. I heard that there are several players/alliances that don't have to pay real money for playing at all.

I like this system because the money spent stays with the Dev's instead of a 3rd party like IGN or whatever they are called.

As near as I can tell, it’s the only workable, realistic solution. It’s no different than trying to get rid of drugs or hookers really. And there are absolute, concrete examples of which ideas on how to deal with them work best for a society in general. And guess what, it’s making them controlled and legal. I agree though that RMT is the result of a more fundamental problem. In my opinion that problem are flawed decisions regarding the root design and focus of the game itself. However, if you’ve got an alternative to my solution, I’m all ears. But I mean a solution that will actually work. “Ban them all”, “them” being either supplier or consumer, is proven beyond any doubt to not work at all.

But to save people the trouble of reading more if they don’t want to, I’ll win the entire thread and fix the genre right now. Ready? Here it is:

Items are nothing more than tools that characters use to make their game sessions easier and more enjoyable. Even the most powerful weapon, armor, or artifact in a game is ultimately nothing more than a tool to make a player hit harder, soak up more damage, or regen mana faster in the course of normal gameplay. If the primary point of a game is a shitty exercise in getting better and better items that are a bigger and bigger pain to get as you go up the scale of items instead of providing things for you to do with those items that don’t involve immediately trying to replace the item you just got, the game is crap and a failure as a game. It might be a really great, complicated graphical lottery, but it’s not a game. It’s even worse if the point of your game is getting bigger, better items and then you make it so it’s impossible for large numbers of your players to be able to get them. That’s not a game, that most people’s real lives.

That’s why the level 1-59 WoW game is universally lauded as great even by single player standards, and the 60+ game is the subject of trenchant, bitter contention – complete crap for anyone but the same *ahem* people *ahem* who enjoyed EQ - for them it's exactly what they want. It suddenly and irrevocably shifts from being a game to an elitist exercise in the acquisition of exponentially more powerful items for the sole purpose of dickwaving. Of course there’s nothing to do with your great l33t loot but use it to get l33t3r loot.


Only if the game itself is solely about the acquisition of items and nothing else of consequence. If you remove the foozlel00tz from WoW and EQ, the endgame is fundamentally and irrevocably gone. It literally ceases to exist except for a questionable PvP system, a PvP system that would be far better off if you did get rid of raid loot. Now if you take away foozlel00tz in UO the game wouldn’t have changed because it never really had any, and if you take it out of DAoC it actually vastly improves the game. Both UO and DAoC, even AO managed to be perfectly fine, long-lived MMORPG’s without uberloot. Of course they don’t have WoW’s numbers, but WoW itself doesn’t have WoW’s numbers because of uberloot and raids. It has it because uberloot and raids don’t even enter the picture until you hit the last level. It has such huge numbers because it starts as a fun game without uberloot and raids. If the level 1-59 game was the same as garbage they’ve flung together for the endgame, WoW would have kept fewer people than EQ2.

As opposed to the wide array of crafting, housing, exploration, or political options available now? The game already consists of sitting in Ironforge/Orgrimmar, interrupted by occasional trips to get different outfits.
 
Reality argues the direct opposite. People are already buying mountains of gold, and have been since launch. I bought my first 20gp in WoW on launch day. Yes, 20gp on launch day. Those same players buying a pile of money are not, and have not been quitting after buying it. In fact, I put forth the argument that it’s had the opposite effect in allowing people with an interest in the game, but not the time to farm for hours and hours to continue playing past the point where they would have normally been compelled to quit. Besides, like Train Wreck in the FFO thread, when people pay money for something they want to get their money’s worth, even if it means spending more money to do it. To the person who just spent $100 to buy 2000gp to buy the purple belt, the monthly sub fee is so trivial as to be nonexistent when it comes to enjoying their money and what it gets them.
What was that saying earlier in the thread? You pay to play, not to win. If people feel that the designed progression of gameplay is roadblocks that they’re stumbling over, then the game company should take a long hard look at their game. Also if enough players are feeling that it’s that much easier to buy gear, or that buying it is the only way they can get it, that also indicates something in the game is broken and needs looked at. But instead of looking at it and fixing it, they’re designing even less attainable items that so few people will acquire before the next generation of games come out, why even bother. I mean, after the requirements to getting the latest round of announced gear, what can they possibly do to make the stuff more aggravating to get? They’ve got one more round of itemization and then you’re looking at the same requirements to get tier 5 legs as it took to open the gates of AQ on a server. And then what do they do? They can’t make stuff of equal quality that’s easier to get. People will scream about cheapening their “accomplishments”. They can’t make stuff of equal quality equally hard to get, people will scream about loot progression. They can’t make better stuff harder to get, this next set is about at the limit as it is. They can’t go back and make less powerful stuff , people will scream about loot progression even louder. So what happens? The loot system in WoW implodes after this next set. These next armor sets are going to strain the resources of guilds like FOH and their ilk. Does Blizzard think that it’s even realistic to think more than a very few people will ever get it? Are enough people playing so delusional to pretend to themselves that they’ll ever reach the point where they’ll get it?

Also, allowing RMT transactions of items allows players to participate in aspects of the game they want to without being forced into aspects they have no interest in. Being able to buy tierX epic gear would allow a great number of people to PvP who otherwise never would or who have to raid to get the gear, but don’t like the baggage attached to raiding. It would also allow people joining guilds or friends on other servers to skip up the gear progression past stuff there’s no realistic chance they’ll be able to get. As it stands now? Want to join your friends from work in AQ40? Great, just work your way up, join a guild just starting MC, and in half a year from the time you start you’ll have reached the point your friends were at six months ago but have now progressed way past. So get cracking with your new friends, because it’s easier to just make new friends than to ever catch up and play with the ones you already have. See, it’s social! With RMT gear, you level to 60 ASAP and then buy the gear you need to be with your friends.

As far as people buying the same gear that other people “worked” to get, that’s a very easy fix. Just make the for-purchase stuff have a different graphic and slightly worse stats. That’s got the added bonus of allowing l33tists to immediately know who “doesn’t know how to play their class and raid” or whatever it is they say to make themselves feel better.

Regardless, people with money IRL get advantages that people with less money don’t, even if the game companies do whatever is necessary to stop it – which would be shutting down their own game or selling the gold more reliably for cheaper. Those are the only two ways to stop third part RMT in any sort of online economy. Period. Anyway, Q.Q, go start a class war if you don’t like it. Not you specifically, I mean the people who don’t like people with money being better than they are.
I emboldened the most important part of your whole post. The reason the entire game starts to look broken, is because it is broken. The simple fact that my premise that RMT transactions are necessary for a significant enough portion of the population to continue playing means the gameplay is broken in and of itself. Like I said, it’s not 1,000 people supporting a multimillion dollar WoW gold industry every month.

Right – they’re already doing it and will keep doing it no matter what. So since they’re already doing it, there are no real credible arguments for negative effects springing up other than it would annoy a group of people who will complain a lot but never quit. The very same people complaining about the farmers and their effect on the game. What would blizzard gain? Well, a near instantaneous end to the farming problem and an extra several million dollars in pure profit as a start. I’m having a tough time spotting the downside.
The “achievement” of getting loot in WoW is hollow, and trivial. The people who admire others for spending hours and hours on raids getting nothing while they build up DPK for a pair of pants are tools. Who cares what they think about anything. People who want people to admire them for sitting on their ass and getting shiny pants are even sadder tools and failures as human beings.
Because I want to enjoy the game aspects of it with people I like, not the grudging socialization with appropriately leveled and geared people who conform to an artificial socio-itemization hierarchy in order to substitute real accomplishments in the real world for some delusional reality where my life doesn’t suck for whatever reason I’m trying to escape and I struggle to curry the envy of people who matter so little to me personally that it wouldn’t matter if they all died in car accidents aspect of it. I like my games to be games, not a replacement escapism device to replace drugs, religion, or a Pavlovian scratch-off lottery experiment with gnolls

I think this is absolutely true. When you're buying gold, you're making an investment in the game that is probably going to keep you there longer. Hard as it is to walk away from a game you've invested so much time in, it's even harder when you've invested money beyond the normal monthly charge.



Well said indeed.

Isn't that part of battered wives syndrome? The idea that people stay in bad relationships becuase they've already invested so much time into them already?

What the fuck people, get a grip. I'm a hardcore raider, but when I get bored of this game I'll sell my character for some cash and start on the next new thing, maybe with some new people I picked up in this one. My only regret is that I didn't sell my character in UO or FFXI. I won't make that mistake again!

Again though: how does this differ from the variety of systems already in place? Being able to buy for RL cash all sorts of advancement in games doesn't solve the core inbalances that exist in the first place. Whether you buy a pre-rolled character for EA for UO or buy a bunch of tokens to unlock skillpoint levels in UO, it's the same goal.

RMTing is already being built into the foundations of game mechanics such that in a few years WoW is going to feel like an anachronistic throwback. Some are using token-esque ideas, others are more straightforward. Whatever it is, those games are coming, and they'll inspire new thinking even on this side of the pond.

While I agree with much of your assertions, this part I'm not so sure about.

The industry for RMTing is huge, but is it because zillions of players use these things, or is it because a goodly number of traders are buying and selling to play the market? Are really most of the transactions to end users?

I ask because I've long wondered about this, and haven't really seen any definitive proof either way. You are a good example of someone who buys for use, but you also think the game is worth more than I do. I'd be interested in what percentage of your social circle leans the same way you do, since I know that most of mine leans the other way. We all travel these games with crowds in which we best fit, so this is all anecdotal of course. But I'm hoping to drive to a deeper understanding.

RMTing does nothing for me except expose a system or feature that wasn't built for my playstyle. WoW was built for many playstyles, but there are compartmentalized features for some to focus on. As such, I could find an area to play and thrive in for 14 months, but I knew my limitations. The people with whom I travel the diku-inspired games are basically the same way. Parents, grandparents, homeowners, busy lives, whatever. They know their limits and accept them such that RMTing doesn't benefit them.

It certainly does others. There are people like me who do pay because the game is worth it to them. That's great, the reason why there's something for everyone in this genre.

But there's a fine line between RMTing and Micropayments, the reason I mention the Korean/Chinese games coming above. RMTing connotes a sense of "cheating" where Micropayments are "as intended". The only functional difference is who's promoting the trade, and therefore who actually accepts it happening.

And that's my question: do the majority of RMT transactions result in use by players who don't mind the black market (stocks)? Or are the majority of transactions between RMT companies themselves (mutual funds)?

Stop writing about WoW, Bob.  It's eerie to hear my voice in your posts.

It'll inspire new thinking in me all right. Thinking that goes like this: "I don't think I'll buy this game, becuase the cost on the shelf is not how much I'll really end up paying to have fun, that cost is going to quickly skyrocket until I've spent hundreds of dollars in the sake of expediency. Fuck that."

It was a huge hurdle to get me to pay a monthly subscription. I refuse to buy an xbox becuase I hate getting nickled and dimed with xbox live. X amount of dollars to open that door in oblivion? that gets you a giant middle finger from me. This is no different.

In addition, when real money gets involved, you get real management wanting to squeese more and more profits from the game without understanding (or caring about) the concequences. What starts as "for $5 your character can swing 10% faster and take 10% more punishment with these new YELLOW text items!" quickly becomes "You'll need to get 1000 reputation with the emo clan to access the next dungeon. You can either spend 10 hours whacking foozles and slitting their wrists at 100 rep per hour, or you can purchase a FASTPASS for $5 which is redeemable for 100 reputation!" which quickly ends up as "You'll need to buy this item that can ONLY be RMTd to do X Y and Z".

Fuck that. Fuck it long, fuck it hard.

But, Bhodi! Surely the altrusitic devs wouldn't put such bass-ackwards thinking into their games!  They love and cherish us like little children!

You've pointed out exactly why I'm against RMT by companies.  It's a slippery slope coated in teflon and jello, and I can see it quickly spiraling into a shithole in the name of profit.  You can't tell me anyone other than a dev who is also their own publisher would have the ability to resist the pressure or insistance that they do exactly what you've described.

Bob, you seem to be rolling your problems with the raiding game itself into the RMT area.  I'll admit I've only read it quickly but I'll take a closer examination later when I've got more time.  I see them as two separate problems, and I don't disagree that having 40-person raids as the ONLY way to advance a character is bull. I do disagree that RMT doesn't hurt the game as a game.

Um, both of you then tacitly agree with Bob's comment that when RMT is used, the game is broken ?

Because that's what it sounds like.

My issue with RMT is that you are setting up a sytem that makes creating a game that makes it even harder to create your own wealth more attractive to the devs.  It would be in the companies best interest to make it more attractive to just buy that sword of whamfoozlement rather than play the game and earn it.  Or they'll just make certain parts of the quest near impossible so you'd rather buy that segment towards the ultimate hammer of gankitude.

The only reason I don't attach myself to this concern too much is that I do believe people just wouldn't play a game like that if taken too close to its extreme.  It just would be too frustrating and transparent, but you just know some company will try it.

I guess it depends what you mean by broken. Unlike non-RMT games (ignoring for the moment gold buying and it's shady underworld) the game economy is not divorced from the real world. This could be fine; lots of people like playing poker on line for real money, and apparently lots of people like paying for different horses in a single player game.

I personally won't play a game that does it becuase I will not buy virtual items for real money. I think it was retarded in diablo 2, and I still think it's retarded. I have bought gold, once, in FFXI, for expediency's sake, and I didn't feel like it was forced on me or that the game would stop or I couldn't access or get somewhere if I didn't. This I feel is quite different than a game with RMT in mind, parceling out enjoyment based on how much money you put into it. Note that this is also why I don't like gambling.

That's a potshot, armchair designer response at best IMO.

The fundamentals of the problem are this:
Any game in which you can acquire anything of value (items/abilities/access to content/etc) from another player, and it's a shared world, and there is any significant barrier to getting them (anything more difficult that the Planetside model of "click here"), you will have RMT.  So are you guys taking the position that any such game is broken?

Inbalance is broken. Therefore, everything is broken.

Come on. There are people who have, people who get, people who don't because they can't and people who don't because they don't feel like expending the effort. That last group is the problem, the whiny vocal minority complaining about their lot in life. Everyone else either can succeed in the system or is mature enough to know the system isn't for them and moves on.

When I talk about the future featuring more micropayments, I'm not incorporating any thinking about whether that appeals to anyone here. It's just what some companies are pursuing. I couldn't care any less about what goes on in DAoC for example, so people don't have to care about games that incorporate micropayments.

And if that means they're no longer in the genre because the genre has become dominated by such games, that's the breaks.

Yes, and I've never said otherwise.  If people feel they need to pay RL cash to do something in a game, then something's broken.  What I'll disagree with you all day long on is that Raiding sucks.  Some people like it, just like some enjoy DIKU-clones but despise Diablo-clones and vice-versa. Whoda thunk.

Heh, the problem when people try to buy their way to fun is that it rarely works.  In both WoW PvP and PvE, they will have no idea how to play their character properly and quickly earn the bemusement of the community; probably not much fun.  If they do eventually improve, they will find that the entire procedure probably didn't save them much time to begin with, and that they have no fond memories of any meaningful accomplishments.

Now, if you want to build an MMO from the ground up with RMT in mind, then be my guest, but I think I'll stay away.

The description of a requirement for "tiering" through MC -> BWL -> AQ40 is overblown; I have personally witnessed a ton of exceptions to this rule.  Besides, you develop a necessary skill set inside these instances, and they're not inherently unentertaining.  Depends on the people/guild.

No one will whine about relative changes in material reqs for new tiers if they get easier, stay the same, or even get a bit harder.  Most people are concerned about whether the instance is any fun.  Any half-dedicated player can get most of their tier 3 and resist materials in a few days if they farm for a couple hours.

Thanks for that.  You obviously don't know my VAST credentials in game design and rollout.

Oh no, hang on.  That's not me.

I suppose if I wanted a response (which I do) I should have been less snippy.

I really am curious though: as the underlying problem is that getting items is HARD (some are harder than others) AND you can get them from other players.  Is this the model that you guys think is broken?

I'm leaving aside the fact that maybe you think getting items is too hard in the endgame of WOW in particular.  RMT appears in any game in which getting items is anything but trivial.  Even if you couldn't transfer items between players (remove the economy), you'd still have level-me/equip-me services.

Stripped of item acquisition and leveling, you don't have a game really.  Or, you have a game, but it's essentially an FPS with lots of bots, most of which have poor AI.

History shows this is not true.  EA and Sony both offer RMT services, and it is nothing more than what you can get in the game.  In most cases its less; just enough of a boost to put you close enough to the Parkers in order to keep your fun meter going. 

RMT is tough to discuss though due to peoples preconceived notions.  Its a lot like trying to discuss President Bush; people will not bend from their opinions no matter WHAT the facts are.

Well you have EQII on one side, I guess, and Project Entropia on the other.

The term "RMT" has hugely different implications depending on its use, and I don't think it's unreasonable to be suspicious about a slippery slope in a discussion about MMO companies, profit, and fun.

Which is why I separate RMTing from Micropayments, and don't blame RMTing for ills that are truly caused by farming.

It's not RMT-enabled EQ2 servers that the future will be pinned on. The game just never got successful enough for people beyond a niche of their small playerbase to really care. It's also not about just trading items to increase one's ability to get more items from the system. I mean, that's really the irony with RMTing. People are so enamored with continued advancement once the levels stop, they'll pay more to buy stuff that they were trying to get from drops just so they can get better at trying to get drops.

But that's what people do, because they can. And there's nothing wrong with it beyond some vague statements in a seldom-enforced boilerplate EULA.

Nah, the future will be on those games that can manage Micropayment strategies without snubbing the noses of everyone who doesn't pay. It's still based on inbalances, but if what people can buy are more about bragging rights and environment customization, then the game mechanic and balance remain solely based upon what is achievable through game achievement. Win win.

You can thank FoH for the WoW-killer not having WoW's raiding as its endgame character advancement. The bad news is that the WoW-killer is not even in development, because we (the players and the developers) haven't yet learned what WoW can teach us. So thank FoH for the lesson they're about to teach.

Well, depends on what you mean by broken.  It's certainly making more money than I'll ever see.  A lot of people claim to have fun playing it. -shrug-

My argument was more along the lines that Blizzard setting up their own RMT system won't improve this in the long run.  The big, primary color problem here is the obvious one that the end game for many MMORPGs is very tedious.  Having to do the same thing over and over and over again to get the item that has a three percent chance of dropping is usually not fun (even if it was fun the first five or ten times, it gets a bit old after a while).  This is why people are willing to trade real, actual money for the assurance that they can skip parts of it.  Not exactly a profound revelation, I know.

But legitimizing RMT doesn't fix this.  If you want to force people to slog through this tedious stuff to lengthen their subscription (as Blizzard obviously does), then RMT works against that, as it cuts down on the amount of grinding you have to do to get your loot.  If, on the other hand, you don't want to force people to struggle through hours of tedium, then you can easily remove it from the game ("Did I say the mob drops that purple sword three percent of the time?  I meant sixty percent of the time"). 

That's why I'm saying it sounds like a band-aid solution to me.  It doesn't address the underlying problem.  You've still got a very grindy, tedious endgame.  You can pay real money to skip ahead a bit, but you're just skipping ahead to the next step of the same grindy, tedious endgame.  You can keep funelling money to IGE or whoever and make the game a bit less frustrating for a little while (and more power to you if that's what you decide to do), but I wouldn't call that an optimal solution by any stretch. 

And for the publisher, while I don't think that it'll be the end of the world (oceans of fire, dogs and cats living together, and all that) if a company sets up it's own in-house RMT thingy, I would see it as a mistake, as it seems like they're working against their own design (if the game is too repetitive, raise the drop rates or something, don't charge me more money to compensate for your own screw-up).

Well, yes.

That's what we're all saying.


We all PASSIONATELY agree.

Well, and keep in mind I'm sure there are plenty of gamers like me that aren't buying gold for endgame purposes, but to better enjoy the 1-59 game without worrying about making money/saving money for your mount, etc. Many ways of making money throughout the game are tedious, especially tradeskills. I spent a lot of time on my previous character using two gathering professions, skinning and herbalism, but on my latest character I'm trimming the fat that isn't fun - and while collection tradeskills can make money, it's not fun. I wonder how many hours I wasted skinning stuff and picking flowers just to get some coin in the bank. Instead for a fairly small amount of money I can just not worry about it and focus on the fun stuff in the game.

Once you realize how easy it is to buy gold, it's a temptation that is very difficult to resist. Especially after several playthroughs when you've already played the "grind for coin" aspect of the game to death and just want to focus on the fun parts.

I've never had to 'grind for coin' on any character after my first. (Took me until 45 to get my first mount.)   Once you hit 55-60, a few instance runs where you win a shard or three is enough to fund a low level character well into their 20s -- Provided you aren't doing something dumb like buying 'top' green armor each level (and forget about blues you don't loot, use the 60 to farm the lower instances if you want greens that bad.)  IF you want to twink them with Runecloth bags, it'll take a few more runs but not too many. Then once you're into your 20s and earning 'decent' coin, you still have all the cash from the previous levels built-up on top of that initall padding.

Of course, I'm also an obsessive.  I pick-up EVERYTHING, even on cash-twinked alts (and running low instances these days I find I'm the only one looting 80% of the time, because everyone else is a twink too, but doesn't care.)  I have mods to tell me which stuff is lower value so if I get full I can dump the low stuff.

  I alo pick-up enchanting and skinning on every character. Skinning is easy, you're at the mob anyway, so you're not running-around to find nodes. It's a few extra seconds and inventory slots, yeah, but tossing it on the AH is a simple 'end of the day' procedure that brings a steady income.  Enchanting hauls down a lot of cash if you don't try skilling it up.  Just DE everything green  that doesn't sell on the AH in one shot, and all your old equipment and 'useless' quest rewards.  Sell this in stacks, rather than 2, or 3 or 4 at a time.  Even on a 'full' server today, there's pleny of people buying low level enchanting mats for twinks to skill-up on.

And all that is before you get into the "Buy Low/ Sell High" Auctionhouse game.  I do that with 2-3 items a week and am consistantly above 200g on all my chars.  I have one friend who used to do it obsessively (she doesn't work) and logged into her Ah alt 4+ times a day to check auctions and find new 'bargins' she never dipped below 1500-2000 gold, not including whatever she had in equity.

So, in essence, I'm saying you don't need to buy cash, just play smart.  Buying the cash after your first run-through on the 1-59 gauntlet is just being lazy.  I could understand someone wanting it for that first run on a server, or their first L40 or L60 mount, again out of laziness or a desire to have 'the shiny' right at 40 or 60, but not beyond that.

Same. I played 1-60 fairly slow on my first character, picked mining/skinning for cash, and had my mount midway through level 40. I don't actually have another character on the server that's 60, but I did twink numerous alts with 10-20g seed money. As long as you take a gathering skill, you'll be fine. 12 slot bags are 1g each on my server, and 4 of those goes a looooong way to having more fun while leveling.

On my other 60 on a pvp server I took herbalism/alchemy and found that arcanite transmutes net about 10g buying mats off the AH and selling the bars back. Once I discovered that, I ceased having money issues. That, and herb is the way to go on a PvP server because of the crazy amounts of consumables used. Sungrass was 15g a stack.

Yeah I would agree with this. When I have an alt on a server with a high level character, I usually can fund that alt easily. My latest gold purchase was a nest egg for two new characters on a new server. It's still lazy, I freely admit, but it does trim off the fat for what I want out of the game right now.

I don't.  :-D

The very existence of RMT means a game is broken? Uh... no.

In any game where players can help each other out or be "charitable" to each other, in the sense of being able to make unequal trades, this act of help and charity requires a social bond that forms out-of-game.

RMT just replaces any actual social relationship between two people with a cash transaction.

--GF

That's fucked.

I think you'd really hate a game that no one could help another person in in any way. So, unless games eliminate coin transactions, how do you design a game where people can't sell coin and people won't want to buy it, to shortcut effort, or just because they don't make friends easily?

I can't really get into in depth replies right now, since f13 is playing up on me.  However, you're turning a game into a charity, or worse, a place where you buy friends.

We're talking about Real Money here.  There shouldn't be a requirement for that in a game.



Edit : Sorry, my grammar is away to fuck.

Sounds like prostitution when you put it that way.

A comparison not entirely without merit.

Sorry, I have to pay Real money to help another person in any way ?  I have to pay money to make friends ?

Paying money to shortcut effort, I can barely understand, but the other two ?  I refer the right honourable gentleman to the 'That's Fucked' answer I gave some moments ago.

But that has more impact on the game than just the transaction. To generate in-game currency for RMT sale, large-scale farming operations work 24/7. This puts more coin into the economy than would otherwise be there, and it enters in the hands of RMT. Prices go up in the player economy, because RMT users have more money to pay for things. Your average player who does not use RMT and gets their gold from PvE becomes cut off from the player economy, because they cannot afford those prices. The only way for your average player to re-enter the economy is to find something they can sell to those using RMT, which tends to require significantly more time than they would otherwise spend in the game, so only hardcore traders and RMT users can keep up. That is how RMT damages MMORPGs, particularly WoW.

Yes, but the only thing I've seen that is affected by this is crafting materials and a handful of BoE high end items.  The vast amount of BoP items keeps this in check pretty well I think.  I just can't for the life of me get anywhere with high end blacksmithing without spending vast amounts of hours running around looking for mining nodes before a farmer gets to it.  The other sources are in raiding content, which I don't take part in anyway.

The only things I can think of that require gold are the mounts at 100 gp and 1000 gp.  Outside of that is crafting and potions.  To me, crafting is just a side project that really never nets you anything decent, but you feel like you have to do it.  Potion inflation could be a real issue.  Particularly if you PvP a lot and don't want to spend the time hunting flowers.

That's all from my point of view though.  I could be missing something.

2 Things :

1 - RMT increases that farming.  Your argument is circular.
2 - The farming itself is the bit of the game that is broken, requiring RMT.

Also, you're not quite correct here.  If I really, really, really cared, I could whip out my credit card and pay for my Thorium Brotherhood rep.  The reputation grinds are also fucked.

No argument here.  Mining bites.

Ya got me there.  I forgot about rep.

There are a lot more BoE items than "a handful". Even the bracers and belts from MC are all tradeable. And resist gear goes for a fortune. You mentioned potions and potion materials. There's also enchanting materials, which become vital on epics at 60. Your average player buying any of those is competing with cheats who have bought RMT gold that only exists because of the profit motive, and is disadvantaged by the resulting inflation.

Sorry I forget how big my hands are compared to others.   :-D

Seriously, I meant there are far more BoP items and they typically are always much more desirable than BoE.  There are a few exceptions.  Everytime I'm at the ah looking for something nice, they pale in comparison to the stuff I see on the glowing people.  BoE stuff only is important when leveling up to 60.  Past 60, it all is different shades of grey compared to the rest.

I suppose I could pay some farmer to play my characters and get nice raiding equipment.  I'd like to see a MMOG figure out how to put a stop to that.  I bet somebody could make a good bit of coin doing that for a living.

It's more like the feed off of each other.

I'm not sure how you could create a resource system without some sort of inherent repitition; every node can't be a fresh and exciting experience.  If you made things require less mats, they would be easier to get, and it would be hard to justify their current relative power compared to monster drops.

Blizzard has reacted to this by having the good crafting items require rare resources that you can only find inside raid instances where farmers can't get at them.  This is great for minimizing pointless grind, but so much for casuals getting access to good items without the prospect of large groups.

Of course, most of these mats are BoE, but there's still the potential for someone to say, "The price is too much!" and buy gold to purchase the materials.

We can't have nice things, etc. Enjoy. :)

Work, work  :roll:

You seem to have misinterpreted my post as a defence of RMT, which it wasn't.

That's what it seems.

Ooops.

No, I guess I phrased it badly. I was trying to point out the difficulty in designing a game that did not lend itself to RMT at all, and all I can figure is to remove coin transactions completely from the game. People even ebay'd CoH influence from what I heard. All games seem to have a system of easier access to cash at high levels and even though WoW seems to have made an effort at high level cash sinks, with respec costs and repairs, but even there people are buying gold to shortcut them.

Uh, yes, yes, I know.

But.

Saying "RMT means a game is dead" is like saying "any game where someone can help someone else out is dead". Because if a player can help another player without in-game compensation then there's a crack there for RMT to drive itself into.

Scouring the game of anything that could involve RMT doesn't seem very practical.

--GF

Removing coins wouldn't solve it. The players would adjust to a barter-based economy.
You think farming would decrease without RMT? I think not.

RMT was caused by farming and the simple truth that every player starts an MMORPG inherently unbalanced by default: due to Time. There's a lot of ways to cheat in games, but you can't add more hours to the day without taking away some from something else. Some just don't/can't do that. As such, even if this was a utopian world without RMT, these people would still be at a disadvantage, with now no way of catching up.

RMT is just a sympton of the deeper farming issue. Remove the need for farming at all and you've solved many problems. That's been done, but not in games that have been hugely popular in the monthly-fee department. Of course, RMTing would still be there for BoE items, because again, there's unbalance exists at the most fundamental level (Time).

Giggle.

You're actually trying to get me to defend one side of an argument I've called Circular ?


 :roll:

Sorry. It sounded like you were saying RMT was the problem. If you think RMT = farming = RMT though, yea, circular :)

I just don't agree with that. Farming to buy because one can't adventure is that someone trying to level up outside of having to spend time in an instance. Farming becoming the purview of those who have at least as much time to farm as raiders have to raid is not because of RMTing. It's because people figured out that it's easier to farm than adventure and developed wasy to make it more efficient. Farming is emergent behavior that spawned RMTing.

Remove the reward of farming and a lot of RMTing goes with it. But then, doing that removes a good chunk of what quite a lot of people apparently like (Raiding) either because they do it or because they want to.

I like the BG approach in theory