Tell me why RMT is any different from...

[geldonyetich2]

  "I remember when it used to be about playing skiball."

[Merusk]

And for the emotionally-charged out there, consider the actual impact of RMT versus the supposed and theoretical. Then find some people who don't live these games day and night, but who play them occasionally, and ask them what they think (and not in a "do you like to achieve how the game was intended or do you support the rampant cheating of exploiters and bots?" sorta way ). You might be surprised what the "Average person" thinks.

They think you're fucking nuts for wanting to spend cash on fake items, in my experience.  The hardcore are the ones pissing and moaning about it, yet buying shit up right and left behind the scenes.


In the end, it'll come down to more folks doing the Station Exchange thing.  At that point, I'll be done with the genre.  The fact that you fail to see the difference between botting and twinking and the difference from there to RMT speaks volumes about your own preference, Dar.  It always has.

[Raph]

But I think most people still treat WOW and other games as basically the bar they go to hang out at.

But then the ability to echange gear/money with other player or lack thereof doesn't actually affect such casual bar-like interaction. For that matter you probably don't need large parts of what's typically put in MMO to get the 'virtual bar to hang out at', and the desired functionality can be pretty much duplicated by any single player or small multi-player game paired with chat server. Or in some cases by chat server alone. So dramatic hyperboles how removal of option to trade goods might as well mean the game should be devoid of any ability to interact whatsoever... it sort of falls flat and short of making the point.

Keep in mind that for my personal tastes as a player, WoW is ALREADY devoid of social interaction.   

The stuff in the threads on the blog was actually about removing currency, and all "uneven" trades. And my point was "that wouldn't do the trick" and that "doing the trick would be bad in lots of other ways."

I don't know what sorts of bars you go to, but not being able to buy a round for someone in the ones I go to would in fact make it a lot less social.

It is definitely true that you do not need most of the stuff put into an MMO to get that vibe. Hence the large numbers of people who don't bother with MMOs. :)

[IainC]

Raph, do you think there is a correlation between the rise of RMT and the general trend towards making games solo frendly?
Back in the day many MMOs forced you to be social and achieving stuff without grouping or forging ingame relationships was often pretty painful. As a group though, stuff happened at a passable rate which made the temptation to resort to RMT for a hand up less of a factor. Nowadays games are designed to be viable as a solo experience and making those same social connections that we depended on to level up in early DAoC or EQ or whatever isn't so vital.

Many players prefer to be left to do their own thing, sat by themselves killing their mobs alone with some banter over the guild channel to prevent them from going insane. Relying on other players can be painful, working a social network can be hard work. Solo grinding may not be fun but it is reliable and easier than investing time and effort into alternatives that might or might not be more rewarding. As a result RMT seems like a much more attractive prospect if it allows you to skip the next few evenings of murdering XP_Mob_01 and instead progress straight to the systematic genocide of Dire_XP_Mob_01.

Obviously the maturity of the genre is certainly a factor but I can't help wondering if de-emphasising social playmodes is also a contributor.

[Raph]

So, I don't know. But I would conjecture that you may be right that there's some effect.

The social pressure from having a group of friends that you level with would be very different if you don't have those friends. People use RMT to catch up, but the flip side is also true -- you wouldn't use it if it meant levelling past your friends -- and if they are not RMTers, they will look down on you for doing it anyway.

If you are just soloing, then you don't care who you outlevel. I'd guess you are a bit more likely to do it.

[Lum]

I can only assume that these jackanapes spend thousands and thousands of dollars a day on WoW accounts for spam purposes.

Nope. They use free trial accounts. Which means that more and more abilities are taken away from free trials as spambots abuse them. The latest to go was spamming group invites; now spambots are limited to standing in the middle of Orgimmar spamming ads all day (or until someone reports them for spamming).

This also means that legitimate free trial users can no longer make their own groups.

To Blizzard's credit, they have done more than most in addressing the symptoms of RMT spam; it's far less spam-infested than, say, 3 months ago.

[Tale]

Tell me why RMT is any different from...

• Powerleveling
• Twinking
• Dual-boxing
• Logging in at server-up
• Bots of any type
• Joining a fresh server before others
• Getting into a game before launch

Darniaq, if it's against the game rules, it's bad for the game. If you gain by breaking them, you are cheating on those who are keeping to the rules.

If I'm trying to be recognised on merit, and you get recognised on merit before me because you greased the wheels illegally, you are a piece of shit who deserves to lose all recognition.

• RMT does not cause advertising. The ability to spam does. Anyone who thinks RMT spam is the biggest part of any MMO needs only to visit the major player commerce centers to see what real spam is like (Bree, Ironforge, any Qeynos)

You're looking at it the wrong way round. Demand creates advertising. The core problem is the prevalence of RMT buyers, not sellers.

• Anyone who thinks RMTing gets players to l33tdom hasn't played a post EQ2 MMO at the endgame, when the real separation betwee have and have-nots begins.

RMT is not that limited. Join our uberguild raid, honoured guest. Your $500 or 10k gold (which we can sell for $520) guarantees two drops minimum.

Or is there some fundamental measurable objective impact it has on the game world?

Yes. These are faucet-drain economies. Faucet because money enters the economy spontaneously via player activity, not by a bank controlling how much is printed. Money leaves the economy through in-game expenses acting as permanent drains - it does not circulate forever.

RMT turns the faucet up to 11, due to real life profit motive and sweatshops. Cash floods the economy far faster than intended, creating inflation. Bigger drains must be implemented by the developers, to create higher spending. For most honest players, this means the bar is raised to a ridiculous extent. They have to play longer and harder to afford what RMT-funded players can buy.

In the trader economy, markets become skewed by what RMT traders want to buy/sell, changing the gameplay of honest traders. Some strike it artificially rich because they have RMT-funded customers and a product that is in demand. This changes the social structure of the server - those honest players might not be the rich ones if RMT wasn't twisting the results. Other traders have comparatively low income because what they're selling is only useful to honest players, most of whom can't afford much.

The way you are questioning the wrongness of RMT reminds me of the way I've seen people question the wrongness of paedophilia and organised crime. Not because IGE was founded in Triad territory by a paedophile network, but because you seem that blind to rights and wrongs. In essence, you've said cheating and its impacts should be tolerated.

[lamaros]

I couldn't care less about RMT. Go for broke, I say.

If it seems to be harming the game, then fix the root causes. The RMT is just highlighting issues if it becomes an issue, it's not an issue of itself.

Issue!

[Ratman_tf]

Nope. They use free trial accounts. Which means that more and more abilities are taken away from free trials as spambots abuse them. The latest to go was spamming group invites; now spambots are limited to standing in the middle of Orgimmar spamming ads all day (or until someone reports them for spamming).

This also means that legitimate free trial users can no longer make their own groups.

To Blizzard's credit, they have done more than most in addressing the symptoms of RMT spam; it's far less spam-infested than, say, 3 months ago.

Hrm. I seem to remember gettings spam invites after the Blizz crackdown on trial accounts. Then again, it wouldn't be the first time I've had "creative memory". 

[Ironwood]

Why are we having this argument again pretending that there's even a discussion here ?

Two Sides :  Those who use it and those who don't.

You're not going to get those sides to agree ever.

Why fucking bother ?

Here, I have an idea :  You Devs get the fuck out of here and go make a decent game for once.  Stop fucking navel gazing like it means shit.

I eagerly await the day I can plonk down my Massive Platinum Amex to purchase another Knight and Rook to own the fucking noob across the board who just caught me on a bad day and is a lucky wee fuck and I wasn't even concentrating there and anyway I'm ill and my wife and I had an argument and I didn't mean to lose my Queen, you fucking PK Newb.

[Arrrgh]

Great thoughts all!

It causes inflation. Prices on newbie/mid level items go up faster than a real newbie/mid leveler can afford if they don't buy gold.

RMT does create bad behavior. Farmers...

Farming causes inflation. Farming is the "bad" behavior. RMTing is just one transaction to help move the gold around. Remove the need to farm, or place the major rewards behind other gates.

If you dump a bunch of cash into an economy, and nothing else changes, you get inflation. It doesn't matter where the cash comes from.

http://www.inflationdata.com/inflation/Inflation_Articles/Definitions.asp

[lamaros]

Why are we having this argument again pretending that there's even a discussion here ?

Two Sides :  Those who use it and those who don't.

So as someone who doesn't use it but doesn't care about it anways, I fit in what side?

[Simond]

Hrm. I seem to remember gettings spam invites after the Blizz crackdown on trial accounts. Then again, it wouldn't be the first time I've had "creative memory". 

It's a very recent change - in the last couple of weeks, iirc.

The Simond method of fixing RMT: Ban the buyers, not the sellers. The goldsellers seem to be perfectly willing to keep...acquiring accounts - I suspect that the people forking over RL cash for e-gold won't be quite so willing.

At least, after the first couple of accounts.

[IainC]

The Simond method of fixing RMT: Ban the buyers, not the sellers. The goldsellers seem to be perfectly willing to keep...acquiring accounts - I suspect that the people forking over RL cash for e-gold won't be quite so willing.

At least, after the first couple of accounts.

It's trivially easy, given comprehensive server logs and an effective parsing tool, to spot RMT purchases. What we would do is trace it back to the mule characters, ban all the accounts associated with the trading network and then delete the gold from the customers. Making the end users of RMT operations afraid to purchase does more harm to these companies than simply removing their assets.

[DarkSign]

I couldn't care less about RMT. Go for broke, I say.

If it seems to be harming the game, then fix the root causes. The RMT is just highlighting issues if it becomes an issue, it's not an issue of itself.

Issue!

But the root cause is that games require achievement/work/time...and that will never be "fixed." As long as it takes effort to go from level 1 to level 90 someone will want to shortcut that process. Oftentimes in discussions like these, people say "if you just made levelling more fun or made more really good content instead of grind, people wouldnt want to do this," but thats poppycock.  People will always want to get a powerful character faster than someone else.

IainC proposes something interesting, but of course it would take dollars and manpower. If you had a parsed log of all trades, then could sort by biggest trade of gold or most number of trades over a certain amt...you might be on to something there.

[Sky]

• Powerleveling
• Twinking
• Dual-boxing
• Logging in at server-up
• Bots of any type
• Joining a fresh server before others
• Getting into a game before launch

Are we really playing this game? I mean, these are all pretty shitty things that are fallout from poorly designed games. Forced grouping = boxing, rare spawn/slow timer = get in quick syndrome, etc.

I also had to deal with a tripple boxer in EQ2 yesterday, I was trying to finish a quest and his little 'team' was steamrolling everything in the area, making me sit and ninja the spawn. I hung out with the person that was there when I got there, and helped out. They left, and before the next spawn, the 'team' showed up. No chat, no reply to my offer of sharing the area. Every intention of rolling over the spawn I was hanging out waiting for.

So, am I wrong? Is RMTing just another method of gaming the game like the others listed, all to get around problems and keep up with friends or get ahead at all? Or is there some fundamental measurable objective impact it has on the game world?

Ok. Let's go back to the Innoruuk server of EQ1, back in 1999. If you wanted a fishbone earring? You bought it from me. You didn't get it in-game, because you couldn't. I had a timer, Hadden popped and died within seconds. I may have missed one or two at server ups, but I was underemployed and johnny on the spot.

Without the profit motive, I'd have nabbed a few for some friends and called it a day. In a game with limited and contested resources, adding a profit motive to denying others makes for a shitty game experience for the others.

I can't talk much about the direct impact in games these days because I stay the fuck out of the endgame areas. I do know I've heard about farmers in the last few games I've played, dominating high-end zones farming gold (Loping Plains or whatever), but I hesitate to bring it up because of my lack of first-hand knowledge.

The social pressure from having a group of friends that you level with would be very different if you don't have those friends. People use RMT to catch up, but the flip side is also true -- you wouldn't use it if it meant levelling past your friends -- and if they are not RMTers, they will look down on you for doing it anyway.

If you are just soloing, then you don't care who you outlevel. I'd guess you are a bit more likely to do it.

Do you see the inherent flaws in a gaming system where this makes any kind of sense? 

[Koyasha]

Banning buyers is the only way to remove demand, and removing demand is the only way to get rid of a market entirely, regardless of how many regulations one places in the way of it.  See: Prohibition, War on Drugs, black market gun, drug (prescription kind), organ, slave, and anything else you can think of trade.  Markets can be driven underground but never slain so long as someone is willing to pay enough to make a profit for the people doing the selling.

As for why it's bad, as noted before...the faucet-drain economy.  Yes, regular players farm too, but regular players stop farming.  See, while a regular player in, let's say WoW, will farm up enough money to buy some crafted epics on the auction house, their swift flying mount, and then keep a running total of maybe one to two thousand gold normally, they don't continue farming as efficiently as possible after that, because they have no reason to.  Meanwhile, the farmers that are selling money for real-world cash have plenty of reason to continue farming at whatever rate is most efficient.  Forever, without ever stopping.  That increases income far more than the game intended, so the developers have two choices, neither of which is good for the person who doesn't buy money.  Ignore the problem, allowing rampant inflation (see FFXI or Lineage II for an example, although I understand there's finally been deflation there after a long time due to measures taken to prevent excessive farming) or increase moneysinks to the point where the average player has a hard time affording them at all (FFXI had some of this, I remember when it was unreasonable to even rent a chocobo at certain times of day because the prices were so high).

If the faucet pours more, as it does when real life gains are involved, the sink will either fill up or the drain needs to be made bigger.  Only a fixed economy with a limited amount of total money existing in the world would stop this from a gameplay perspective, and a fixed economy is infeasible as long as players can hoard massive amounts of money and simply log off and quit playing with siginficant amounts of money in their bank.  Plus most of these games get to the point where players no longer need to spend much, at which point money flows into their hands but not out of it at the same rate.  Only a full pvp game in which you could lose your money could possibly work with a fixed economy, and maybe even not then.

[IainC]

IainC proposes something interesting, but of course it would take dollars and manpower. If you had a parsed log of all trades, then could sort by biggest trade of gold or most number of trades over a certain amt...you might be on to something there.

This is something that we actively did on slow days when the rest of the CS work was done. It isn't something that will happen by itself or that can be scripted easily. You'll always need a person to interpret the data and make distinctions between philanthropy and RMT. It is easy to spot once you know what to look for but not something I'd trust to an automated system.

Banning buyers is the only way to remove demand, and removing demand is the only way to get rid of a market entirely, regardless of how many regulations one places in the way of it.  See: Prohibition, War on Drugs, black market gun, drug (prescription kind), organ, slave, and anything else you can think of trade.  Markets can be driven underground but never slain so long as someone is willing to pay enough to make a profit for the people doing the selling.

Banning customers of RMT is normally over harsh. In general the fact that you've deleted something they've paid real money for is enough punishment. Backed up with the slap on the wrist when you send them the CS email, this generally ensures that they understand they did something wrong and that they have suffered the consequences for that. Like the vast majority of people who get caught cheating, once they understand that they will get caught and they will be punished, they generally stop doing it. Plus they tell their friends that they got caught and this further impacts on the RMT businesses. In general the only people you should be banning in relation to RMT are the operators. It might be within the remit of the ToS to ban users but it's rarely warranted.

[Typhon]

Institute "luck" and some game mechanics that are directly related to the social network you character maintains.

"Luck" - if you character plays the game without giving or accepting "gift" in-game, his luck builds, resulting in payoffs overtime (In my head a payoff pops an additional window up with some loot that represents the payoff, if the player likes it/wants it, they hit accept, if it's not what they want, they hit cancel and their luck continues to build).

Social network - if you character has friends that are higher-level, and has had those friends for a considerable amount of time, they begin to xp bonuses to accelerate their leveling rate (if the character chooses a switch that indicates they'd like to catchup/stay with their friends.

There's all sorts of carrots that could be program into a game to make it more attractive to not use RMT (in addition to making the core game more entertaining).  You don't have to go on these banning crusades for people that use RMT.

I don't use it myself, I dislike what I think it does to game-immersion and game communities, but I think there are better ways to address it then simply banning everyone.  Also yes, I realize that my two "fixes" also can be gamed, I was just using them as quick examples of how the game could be developed with a bit more awareness of the player and game societies that evolve with a server.

[Ironwood]

Why are we having this argument again pretending that there's even a discussion here ?

Two Sides :  Those who use it and those who don't.

So as someone who doesn't use it but doesn't care about it anways, I fit in what side?

Retarded or can't you read ?

[CmdrSlack]

I don't care about people advertising to sell in-game stuff for in-game stuff.  I care about people advertising about out-of-game stuff.  It's an immersion breaker, but not only that, it's also annoying because I prefer people progress by playing the game instead of paying real money to the people that rape it.

Wow, you're still on the same jag about RMT, eh?  Way to develop over time.

People would farm regardless of the existence of RMT, especially if farming is the easiest and safest way to get gold required for whatever nifty shiny thing they want. Every MMO I have played has people farming. Some, like CoH can make it a bit less obvious with instancing, but people are still farming for inf and recipes and whatnot. Having any kind of reasonable discussion with you about RMT is like having a reasonable discussion with the most pious of Catholics about abortion. Your own choice of words exposes that you're utterly incapable of seeing the other side of the issue. "Rape?" Really? Not only does your flippant use of the term marginalize the experiences of people who have been literally raped, but it reveals that you're still knee-jerking over the issue.

What DQ is saying is that the bad behavior would exist regardless of RMT. Any spam is really immersion breaking since, you know, global and regional chat is non-immersive in the first place. Farming will exist regardless of RMT if the game system supports the behavior. There will always be people cockblocking you out of content if it is possible to do so. People suck.

To make this easier for everyone out there, maybe you should just do a big post where you engage in all of your other stereotypical Geldon activities. You could make a reference to a class in which you got a C, then misuse the information you "learned" to make a shaky analogy to the subject at hand. THEN you could post to your blog about how nobody understands you because of their inability to read the phrasing of your ever-so-erudite posts. (Hey, Erudites...they ruled.) Then you could come back and post a second post about how you wouldn't have to double post if you could edit posts. In that post you could make yet another analogy to something about which you have a rudimentary level of knowledge. It would fail again. Finally, you could say that you're tired of being marginalized on this board and do another self-ban. About six months later, you'd come back as Geldon3.0 and refer to yourself in the third person while you try to establish how you've changed and grown.

Then another RMT thread would start and you'd be back to square one. It's the circle of internet life.

Or you could engage the issue and look at it from a perspective that doesn't involve, "Show me on the doll where RMT touched you." You know, that objective thinking thing that people who aren't utter moonbats do when they're analyzing an issue.

[CharlieMopps]

I still think this problem all stems from the Producing companies refusal to police it. It would be so easy to catch these people. If you are doing dozens of lopsided trades with people all day it should be pretty obvious whats up. If you give 500G to 100 different people every day never gaining anything in return... that should flag you.

[MaceVanHoffen]

The main problem I have with RMT is it takes what was designed to be an in-game reward and makes it available to anyone with out-of-game means to acquire it.  Games that use some sort of micropayment system for in-game assets are designed completely differently from the get-go.

The whole point of that +200 Sword of Phallic Wonder was that it was earned with in-game effort.  If you want to whine and bitch about the grind or bad game design, fine.  Don't get the sword.  Or just quit the game if you think it's that badly designed.  I frequently do one or both of those.  I'll never understand why in the world people want to plunk down hard-earned cash for achievements in games they gripe about on internet message boards.

I really don't have a problem with RMT farming breaking immersion, mainly because I don't let it.  A nihaoyoubuynowbestprice! farmer isn't rendered any differently from any other character gathering resources.  And /ignore is wonderful.

Spamming for RMT is another matter, of course.  But I'm not sure what game developers can really do about that.

[Venkman]

* better left for after the holidays *

Merry Christmas for those celebrating and Happy Belated Hanukkah to others

[eldaec]

• Powerleveling

Unless you are paying for powerlevelling thorugh RMT (in which case it isn't just like RMT, it IS RMT), then the difference is you are getting powerlevelling through social contacts and agreements based on in game activity.

• Twinking

In game activity.

• Dual-boxing

This irritates me just as much as RMT.

• Logging in at server-up

Eh? What now? Don't really understand you.

• Bots of any type

Worse than RMT.

• Joining a fresh server before others

Come again?

• Getting into a game before launch

Que?


That said, I never really felt the need to get my panties knotted over RMT.

There will always be people more powerful than me in a diku.

There will always be people less powerful than me in a diku.

The game needs to be designed to be fun taking into account these inevitable circumstances. If it does so, it will be good regardless of RMT. If it does not, it will fail with or without RMT.

[ajax34i]

• Powerleveling
• Twinking
• Dual-boxing
• Logging in at server-up
• Bots of any type
• Joining a fresh server before others
• Getting into a game before launch

My opinions:

RMT is like Powerlevelling and Bots of Any Type in that it makes the developers "balance" their game based on maximum rates rather than averages; instead of looking at how much the average player makes and how fast the average player levels up, they look at the "in 11 days" news items, because with a bot or with RMT, that 11 days is attainable by everyone, theoretically.  So the average player gets hit with more grind and more restrictions, simply because RMT, Bots, and Powerlevelling exist.

Dual-Boxing, Logging in at server startup, or getting into the game earlier than others, are ok in my book because they require extra money (for another account) and/or extra effort, for the gain, and are also too time-limited to matter much.

• RMT does not create bad behavior. Without it people would find a different way to cheat, in that or another game.
• RMT does not cause advertising. The ability to spam does. Anyone who thinks RMT spam is the biggest part of any MMO needs only to visit the major player commerce centers to see what real spam is like (Bree, Ironforge, any Qeynos)
  

RMT does create bad behavior.  Making RL cash is a very strong incentive, and so a lot more people grief/cheat/scam because of it.  Finding "new ways to cheat" is just an intellectual exercise; bad behavior is when the players actually apply or use existing cheats/bugs/griefing, and RMT causes a lot of people to do this.

RMT does cause advertising.  Again, the incentive is strong, so there will be advertising.  The fact that the commerce centers are already spammy doesn't make RMT advertising 'ok', and typically RMT spam will be a lot stronger than any other spam because the incentive (RL cash) is so strong.

[ajax34i]

• Logging in at server-up

Eh? What now? Don't really understand you.

• Getting into a game before launch

Que?

He's talking about games where the market or NPC resources are "seeded" whenever the server starts up, so basically if you log in right then, you have a chance to buy stuff from the market before anyone else (EVE-Online for example used to be like this) or kill world-bosses and dragons because they're up (EQ used to be like this).

For "before launch", he's talking about games where you're allowed to keep your beta characters or some part of them, thereby getting an advantage over the "average user."

[Sky]

* better left for after the holidays *

Har!

Have a good one, buddy. Hope everything goes great for you and yours.

[Hellinar]

What’s driving RMT is comparative advantage. Some people have a lot of real world money, and very little time to acquire stuff in the game. Others have little real world money, and lots of time. So they trade, my time for your money. Break that imbalance, and you break the spring that drives RMT.

I can think of a least a couple of ways to do that. Both require that you explicitly aim your game at casual players. One is to limit the time your character can usefully gain stuff. After that, they become “tired” or “unlucky”. The other is to allow all characters to play 24/7, though the player may not be online most of that time. Like EVE’s skill gain, but amped up. I really want to someone to produce a game in which I log and do the exciting stuff with my character, then leave him to do the boring chores when I log off.

 To put it another way, RMT comes from putting two different playstyles, hardcore and casual on the same playing field. Build a casual only game, and you will have much less RMT.

[lamaros]

Why are we having this argument again pretending that there's even a discussion here ?

Two Sides :  Those who use it and those who don't.

So as someone who doesn't use it but doesn't care about it anways, I fit in what side?

Retarded or can't you read ?

Retarded, obviously.

Better that than including me with dont use it but cry their hearts out about it.

[geldonyetich2]

It's always easier to boil shit down into binary thinking, but those who insist on such absolutes are such deluded motherfuckers that stress even my bottomless quantity of self-pity just considering the burden of bearing their crosses.  No, it's not two camps, people like me who care enough about games to consider RMT a holy affront to everything holy about gaming are likely outnumbered severalfold by people who simply are tired of RMT spam.

[shiznitz]

What’s driving RMT is comparative advantage. Some people have a lot of real world money, and very little time to acquire stuff in the game. Others have little real world money, and lots of time. So they trade, my time for your money. Break that imbalance, and you break the spring that drives RMT.

That is all it is. Changing game mechanics won't affect that reality. Some people will pay a plumber $175 to replace the flapper in their toilet when a flapper costs $5 at the local hardware store and takes about as much thought as "round peg in round hole" to replace. My last two RMT transactions were so I could get a fast mount and a basic house without having to farm the two nights a week I get to play. Being able to acquire both kept me subscribing longer than I would have so the game company actually benefitted. 

I returned to UO for about 9 months in late 2000 because I could buy an account with a house and some gold and not have to start from scratch. To me, nothing is worse than coming back to a game in which you were fighting dragons when you quit but now you have to fight rats again.  The MMO companies understand this and that is why they almost never delete inactive accounts.

[Hoax]

Yalls some bitches.  Waahh wah!!  I want my achiever acomplishments to mean something or I'm taking my ball and going home.  Paint whatever bullshit story of how the very fabric of The Game Itself is damaged or whateverthefuck justifications we've got going this time around but it always comes down to OMG people are having it easier then I did!?

Witnesseth the EVE vets crying when the new subraces came out with better optimized starting attributes, witnesseth the gnashing of teeth on the rare occasion that something is made easier in a later patch (raid bosses, drop rates, spawn times, etc) on official forums.  Fucking put down the hatorade.

Ditto to whoever pointed out that the biggest achiever dickwads are the one who make most of the bigtime RMT purchases because they super fucking care about being first.

Double ditto to whomever has pointed out so far in this particular thread on the subject that if games would suck less there would be less RMT.

Triple ditto if anyone pointed out the hordes to cashshop games that work fine despite mechanics that often nudge players towards using RMT.

Quadruple ditto to whomever has pointed out that if you bitches would stop playing games where you can't kill other people this wouldn't even be a damn issue.



Bitches.

 

[Mrbloodworth]

Here is my take on it.

Do you have PvP? Yes? Then its cheating.

No? Then who cares, you don't impact my game play.

[Trippy]

It does if you are competing with farmers to acquire limited resources.