This Week’s “RMT Is Rilly Cool” Story

Tax it.

“Because everything\’e2\’80\’99s better when you\’e2\’80\’99re high.”

Have you ever farmed gold on weed?

I’ve played a lot of MMOGs. None of them have been “frisky”.

Well, okay, maybe a couple, but not any I’d admit to playing.

I’ve been having a feeling that these MMOs need RMT at this point. It’s become so prolific, that a large part of any grindy MMO’s playerbase would probably stop playing MMOs if they didn’t have someone farming money/items for them.

Of course, if RMT is allowed free reign, MMOs might as well be online gambling. Eliminating RMT all together might cut MMO subscriptions by a substantial amount. They either have to live with those reduced numbers or are forced to change the game into something more appealing.

It’s time that the companies that created the MMORPGS realized that this isn’t going away, and try to incorporate it into their design. Think of the money Blizzard is turning away by not selling virtual gold.

Everquest tried to go that route with those newer servers, but the game was in such decline at the time that it didn’t matter.

It’s going to happen no matter what a company does to stop it, and companies like IGE, in effect, have an endless stream of accounts and characters that they use to farm with. They’ll always be two steps ahead of the overworked GMs.

“Very selective analogies that don\’e2\’80\’99t ultimately work.”

Well yours aren’t much better, Amber.

“When you go to Disneland for the day, you are entitled to remove your memories, children, and photos from the theme park”

A unit of currency isn’t exactly a ‘piece’ of the game, and even if it was, there is no way to ‘take’ it with you.

‘A more apt metaphor would be this:

To get into disneyland there is an enormous line. In fact it’s so long, you have to stand in it for hundreds of hours just enduring the monotony of it all. However, instead of standing in line, you can pay a Chinese man about ten cents an hour to stand in line and give you his ticket when he is almost inside the park. The problem is that disneyland says the Chinese man doesn’t own his ticket, and though he can give it away for free (with which disneyland has no problem), if they see you exchanging cash with him, they’ll snatch up the ticket and tear it in half.

I can’t help but think that the people who really object to RMT are ‘have-nots’ in real life and want to maintain the only place where they are considered ‘haves’. I earn enough money that my leisure time is worth more than ten cents an hour to me.

Just thought I’d interject this in here. As this ever growing wave of pharmers from lesser developed economies hits, and people like IGE spread their happy happy, one has to wonder how much of the feeding frenzy is feeding off itself. How many characters are pharmed and sold to other pharmers to pharm gold? How many items are pharmed and sold to other pharmers to help them more quickly pharm gold. How much gold is pharmed and sold to other pharmers to buy whatever they need to advance quickly to the top to pharm and sell things themselves? Parasites feeding on parasites.

One also has to wonder what this does to the fantastic numbers WoW shows as subscribers.

Finally, one has to wonder when the implosion is going to hit. Look no further than UO to see the future of WoW, in a grander scale though. So many wanting to sell so much, and so few to buy.

In WoW’s case, with all the expenses for servers, I wonder if they aren’t going to have one hell of a big fall.

“I can\’e2\’80\’99t help but think that the people who really object to RMT are \’e2\’80\’98have-nots\’e2\’80\’99 in real life and want to maintain the only place where they are considered \’e2\’80\’98haves\’e2\’80\’99. I earn enough money that my leisure time is worth more than ten cents an hour to me.”

I’m sure that does account for some of them. But believe it or not, anti-RMT people are not a giant hive mind who all have the same motives. Some of us just want a fair game. I wouldn’t want to play chess if you could buy a couple extra queens whenever you needed, why would I want to play a MMOG that allows the equivilent?

You pretty much nailed it Joe, there are pretty much just two camps in the anti-RMT party; “I suck at life and all I do is play this video game, why should someone else (Who conversely doesn’t suck at life) just buy their way into the the fun stuff?”; and the “I play the game to be part of a community and to have fun why should the real-world intrude?”.

There are no real good answers to this question, most of your players don’t play to be the worlds best , but just for the interaction with others, and few that do play for whatever title are still playing it for the interaction, otherwise they’d be playing diablo at home, alone. The sad thing is that RMT ruins communities, it hordes resources, promotes non-interaction, and ontop of can ruin the global economy.

Why should I interact with all these stupid people, when I can just pay someone to ?

MMO’s wont really hit the golden spot until they answer that question and put RMT out of the game design.

The best simile I can put to this whole situation, with all moral considerations aside, is that this is like our government’s war on drugs. Attempting to legislate and criminalize an unregulated market bolstered by large, consistent demand.

Laws won’t stop people from buying drugs the same way they won’t stop players from buying gold. The kid’s wanna have fun and you can cram it with walnuts.

While there might be design decisions that can be made to curb activity, any kind of currency in game is going to be farmed and translated into real world currency out of game. I don’t hold much faith for our government to be able to legislate these kinds of property issues. Business is already on the case.

And lest we forget, this is not a game for some, but a job. You could be in competition for a mining node with someone who’s trying to earn their days wage. They might be playing harder than you.

That being said, I am ethically opposed to gold-buying in MMOs. It taints the game in a way I don’t dig. It’s all about the little things.

The problem is, though, that most MMOGs are PvE. You\’e2\’80\’99re not playing AGAINST me when you PvE and I PvE. It\’e2\’80\’99s like we\’e2\’80\’99re playing at entirely different chess boards, and we\’e2\’80\’99re not playing each-other. So what do you care if I guy buy some extra queens to play? And what do I care if you have more queens simply because you\’e2\’80\’99ve been playing chess since 2000 and I only started playing last year? We\’e2\’80\’99re not in competition.

Your missing the bigger picture. We’re talking about MMOGs; Massively MULTIPLAYER – not a series of individual standalone games like Oblivion. In a MMOG, resources are limited by design. Not to stretch a tortured analogy any further (but I will); In your example – when the other guy starts buying more Queens for his game, the Queens aren’t coming out of nowhere. He hires some thugs to go over to the other chess boards (yours and others) and takes YOUR QUEENS and a few rooks and bishops for good measure. If the thugs are using exploits, they just take a boxfull of Queens and dump 20 extra Queens on everybodys boards devaluing everyone’s game (duping).

Your Chess analogy will not work. RMT does hurt a MMOG enviroment.

“Some of us just want a fair game.”

Let me know as soon as a ‘fair game’ comes out. Until then, this is just wishful thinking while having a pipe dream.

“why would I want to play a MMOG that allows the equivilent”

I guess you won’t be playing any mmog’s then. Ever.

“He hires some thugs to go over to the other chess boards (yours and others) and takes YOUR QUEENS and a few rooks and bishops for good measure.”

Except these pieces are not ‘yours’ now, are they?

the guy who buys the +5 sword ain\’e2\’80\’99t stealing a +5 drop from you,

Unless, of course, the farmer who got it to sell to him did so by monopolizing the only place where +5 swords drop.

Aren’t tenuous analogies fun?

It’s quite simple. Some of us want to play a game where RMTs aren’t allowed. There are plenty of places to go and play games where RMTs *are* allowed. Why can’t those of you who want to buy gold just sod off to those games, and leave us in peace?

“I wouldn\’e2\’80\’99t want to play chess if you could buy a couple extra queens whenever you needed, why would I want to play a MMOG that allows the equivilent?”

Further proving a point I made on LtM five years ago.

People need to stop fooling themselves. Every MMO is a PvP game, on some level, whether it be actual combat or by comparison with others. Players need to feel effective, competitive and at the top of their class. And by default, being at the top of their class involves putting other people below you – PvP. Otherwise no one would get worked up about RMT except on a philosophical basis.

The Sleeper is a partyland of RMT. I watched last night as a guy was offering 2K for a Blackguard’s Dudgeon (which usually costs in the 500-750 range). Playing on The Sleeper’s given me another realization – RMT is adversely affecting other players in a more material way than just making them feel lowly. These folks who come fresh flush to the auction channel with plat are paying much more than what the market demands for items, which pushes up the prices for everyone else.

Does this change my mind about RMT? Not really. Play smarter, not harder or with more cash. With a little planning, it’s easy to make cash, experience and loots appropriate to your level. That’s why I can’t get too upset about RMT. I’m making good money, experience and loot for my level, just by being in the right place with the right group at the right time. Albeit, sometimes that time is 4 a.m., but that’s what alarm clocks are for. And besides – it means that if I come across a good piece of loot that I don’t need, I can just as easily get an inflated price for it as I can buy at inflated prices.

If you’re against RMT, what are your motivations? Do you feel like your character is falling behind in gear because of RMT? Why do you care if your character’s falling behind? Heck, what IS falling behind? Do you want your game to be easier?

RMT is not “ruining” games. It’s a scapegoat for a player’s own poor planning and overly enhanced expectations of what their character should be doing. It is only ruining your game because you are allowing it to.

In every MMO that I’ve played, there is no encounter before the raid game (where everything’s no-drop, anyhow) that is not easily beatable by proper levels, smart pulling, strong group composition and teamwork. Gear really doesn’t have that much to do with it.

-Rip

PS. Interesting trivia – the first recorded instance I can come up with of RMT was in 1994 in old Neverwinter Nights on AOL – someone at the annual players’ gathering purchased an Elvenkind Cloak from another player for $200.

In Eve Online the farmers use small armies of accounts to strip mine asteroid belts in “secure” space and then sell the minerals on the market to get their ingame currency, or ISK.

Eve also lets players legitimately trade subscription time cards for ISK. This was originally allowed because of the difficulties in billing for those without credit cards, but has now blossomed into a full RMT market (apparently the developers are looking for alternatives.) Furthermore, players are allowed to buy and sell characters themselves for ISK.

Eve is all about player competition. The most lucrative resources are mostly found in lawless areas and in limited amounts. Losses can take days to recover from when using high-end equipment. Characters take actual months of training to fly anything but support roles in PvP.

The RMT markets have a number of effects on game.
Low-end mineral prices are dragged down by the massive mining operations.
Anyone can grab a powerful character from a departing veteran without any ingame investment. These include characters for combat and alts that build and mine.
Players throw a never-ending stream of expensive ships into battle without having to take time and recover their losses.
There are no fund-raising operations to target if someone is getting all their ISK from RMT in secure space.

“RMT is not \’e2\’80\’9cruining\’e2\’80\’9d games. It\’e2\’80\’99s a scapegoat for a player\’e2\’80\’99s own poor planning and overly enhanced expectations of what their character should be doing. It is only ruining your game because you are allowing it to.”

Yes, RMT is ruining games. RMT is not a scapegoat. RMT destroys hundreds of hours of work when designing one of the funnest to play and most challenging to design elements of a MMRPG, the economy.

Players who use RMT should be banned. People who sell currency for money should be banned. What most MMRPGs lack is enforcement.

How many players would continue to buy currency if the next day they were banned?

Scapegoat that’s just funny stuff… I know let’s not enforce any RMT rules and just start undercutting the illegal sellers prices from the company side.

Obviously you RMT supporters would be okay with a million of currency selling for a nickel. Right? Why not?

“”Players throw a never-ending stream of expensive ships into battle without having to take time and recover their losses.
There are no fund-raising operations to target if someone is getting all their ISK from RMT in secure space.”"

Which is the problem that ruined EVE for me. Once you get past the ‘eek, I won’t go to unsafe space’ barrier, the next step is the ability to do something other than flee in terror against l33t d00ds that camp the 0.0 gates and roam the weakly held alliance terroritories shooting anything that moves.

Once you learn the ropes and can actually put up a fight, it becomes a war of attrition, sometimes over terroritory. One guy gets his T2 shiny using his VISA, another spends tons of time doing risky mining ops or grinds NPC missions. Guess who wins…

The fact that EVE hasn’t closed the Timecards-for-ISK loophole because it makes them REAL ISK (that’s Icelandic Crowns) has kinda dropped the EVE beancounters/developers off the charts for me. Clueless idiots. Buying ingame currency is no more OK even if every real $$ in the transaction is used to pay subscriptions in the end.

Amber-

“All the other excuses (I\’e2\’80\’99m fabulously wealthy/I have limited time/I\’e2\’80\’99m supporting the troops) are just that\’e2\’80\ldblquote excuses to hide yet another way that players want to be better than joo.”

You don’t like RMT and you’re letting that cloud your logic. Who cares if someone wants to be better than the next guy? Isn’t that the whole point of playing with/against other players? Ya know so you can compete/play with a real person as opposed to fighting a script and a set of numbers? If you don’t like people who want to be better than the next guy, and you want you maintain some semblance of consistency, then you should also hate the catassers who play to excess to achieve the same goal of superiority.

You might (and I stress might) have a point if it was necessary to not only play all day, but also to spend real life cash to be able to compete at the upper levels. With the games we’re talking about these days, that is not the case. In fact, gold buying barely affects the end-game of WoW at lvl 60, it just lets you get to that point faster.

D-one

“RMT cuts the heart out of why people play the damn game.”

Why do you think people play the game?

RMT cuts out the monotony of getting to the highest levels of competition. Do you think that the hundreds of hours of monotany is the essence of the game, or is it what you do once you’ve gotten past the boring stuff?

For probably the majority of DAoC (talk about monotonous leveling, YIKES) players and players on WoW’s PvP servers the game really starts at lvl 50/60.

If you come from Everquest, then killing the same mobs over and over again until you either move on to a higher level mob or jump out of a window is probably something that you like. If you enjoy the monotony, I can understand why RMT would piss you off. However, understand that very, very few people enjoy the monotony.

I’ve been tooling around on a new WoW server recently and have been accused of cheating and breaking the ToS by at least 100 players so far. Have I been buying gold or botting or any of those other naughty things? Nope.

I use my lvl 60 paladin to body pull about 20 low level elites, let them hit me for a bit until I’m at about 15% health, crit heal myself back to full, rinse and repeat a few times until my paladin has an insane amount of aggro, and then my warlock/mage on my second account with blessing of salvation just AE’s them down with pretty much no risk. Because my characters aren’t grouped and because healing doesn’t affect XP, my mage gets full experience for every kill. I got my mage to lvl 20 in about 7 hours /played and lvl 30 in about 13 hours /played. It’s quite insane. And as a result I’m pretty much loathed by the entire server’s lowbie population. About 1 in 100 /tells is a ‘hey good idea’ and the rest are ‘you suck!’. This tactic might already be common knowledge among higher ups, but no one I’ve talked to before has heard of it.

Anyway, the people of my server don’t like me because I found a way to surpass them, a way that few people can duplicate. That’s how I see the people who get so angry about RMT. They were either unwilling or unable to utilize it on the path to higher levels, and the feel that since they got lvl 60 the hard way, everyone else should have to also.

I find those numbers hard to believe. There just isn’t that much stuff to spend money on. Weapons never wear out, and anything you can buy on the AH you can find something better through raiding. Wow has a lot of problems with insufficient money sinks.

I also would challenge the idea that so few people care about RMT — I’ve got economics players in my guild who like nothing better than increasing their gold supply. That’s their game… PvE and PvP are far less interesting than building a gold-making empire.

The thugs at the amusement park analogy sounded like the best one so far.

>Until such a game is introduced, players need to accept that \’e2\’80\’9ctime played\’e2\’80\’9d
>is the core game mechanic. When you use real world currency to buy
>online equipment or gold you are bypassing the core game mechanic.

Why should we accept that “time played” is the core mechanic that we should all agree on? Of course YOU like it… especially if you’re someone who has a lot of time to play. Other people can’t play 40 hours a week on a MMOG, and yet still want to feel like they’re making faster progress. RMT lets them do that, and doesn’t lessen your ability to advance by simply playing more.

I can just as easily declare, “Until a game is introduced where time played isn’t a core mechanic, players need to accept RMT is a fair and viable alternative.” Heck, you could even say some games have RMT as a “core mechanic” as well.

I’m squarely on the anti- side, but I see it as a fundamental game design problem.

In any game that’s not 100% instanced, there is, in fact, competition for resources. If I’m at spot X obtaining the gold/plat/sword/resource there, you aren’t.

Obviously everyone has discovered that if you have more force (either by guild or multi-boxing) you can control the production of more game money/loot. Therefore, in many (most?) games, organizations have formed to do so.

Whether those organizations sell the results for real money or keep them in-game for their own purposes is almost irrelevant. The fact that a bit of content *can* be monopolized means that it *must* be monopolized, because one person’s failure (through reluctance, perhaps) to do so means another’s opportunity to do so. In order to retain the power to go after game resources, one has to be able to take them first, fastest, and if necessary right over the objections of others.

Only (to date) instancing has permitted “you *and* I win” rather than “you and *not* I win” and instancing comes with its own host of issues (namely, that all the above behavior holds sway without even a chokepoint to keep items from flooding the game).

The real money just adds an additional incentive to monopolize anything that can be taken.

Now as it stands this is all very open in a sort of Randian (as in Ayn) fashion. On the poker table, this behavior is fully accepted and expected. Nobody expects that the guy with 450k in chips is going to be nice to me because I only have 30k and am struggling; if he does falter, I’ll soon be the one with 450k and he with 30k, and I’ll squash him.

However, this isn’t poker. Somewhere, theoretically, these games are “role-playing” games and the role that’s described on the box is not Donald Trump but Rilly the Elf or Foo the Wizard. I have yet to read a fantasy novel that had Our Heroes approach the Tomb of Nasty Things only to see a merchant’s tent set up out front with a “Sword of the Tomb, $35″ sign. Theoretically people want to act out this role of elf or space captain or whatever.

I say ‘theoretically’ because although this is the game the designers design and the developers code and *some* of the players buy, apparently the majority of the MMOG playerbase is much more interested in this other game that has nothing to do with adventure but is about solving shortest-path puzzles through the content.

So, my impression is that the games where this second sort of game is successfully curtailed have been relative failures, subscription-wise. So (and the industry people may or may not speak to this) there must be a huge pressure to cater to the farming market, because those guys buy 18 accounts and exhaust the content and keep your company hopping and developers busy, whereas the guy who games for the sake of the game buys one copy (and his other money goes to the farmers so as to keep up).

That’s not really correct, weasel – anything where goods & services are exchanged, consumed, and distributed functions as an economy. That is all that is needed.

I would also argue that the only ones that have failed are the ones which no longer exist.

“And yet, you probably play a \’e2\’80\’9cchess\’e2\’80\’9d where the more time you spend playing the game, the more queens you get. Why would you want that?”

No, I don’t actually. I find the current dikumud clones to be boring and pointless. However I am capable of seeing the obvious. The game is designed such that you spend time to get better. That is the core of the game, that is how it is designed, those are the RULES. Breaking the rules by advancing through other means that are not allowed is called cheating.

This is not complicated, it is not hard to understand, and throwing out random excuses that have nothing to do with reality won’t make it not cheating. The rules of chess are established, and I choose to play or not play based on those rules. The rules of dikumud clones are that you spend time to make numbers get higher for no reason. If you do not like those rules, then do not play.