Dual currency systems are great, and the YPP model is brilliant… but the typical DIKU style MMO game isn’t framed in such a way as to make the most of it. That’s not a reason not to try it, but there are some inherent game design issues that will function differently.

Disclosure: I’m a big fan of YPP (Silveransom over there), and it’s the only “MMO” that I’ve been happy to give real money to. Daniel James’ interview with Tycho of Penny Arcade nails it; give people things to play with and build a relationship, and the money will come. It’s a refreshing attitude in a DRM world, and I’m very happy to support Three Rings in their efforts.

I’m really late to the party but anyway.

As far as I can tell, Eve implemented this system with minor variations — GTC is the second currency and it is securely tradeable through Eve website. There are minor differences (such as Eve trading being open instead of hidden as you suggest), but I don’t think it has any effect on my conclusions.

My conclusion is that this didn’t kill illegal RMT in Eve and I’m pretty sure it won’t kill illegal RMT in your hypothetical game.

The reason is pretty simple and as follows:
Legal RMT (through game-authorized means) will tend to gravitate towards $$/game time ratio that is acceptable to a west-erner population. For example, in Eve, secure&legal RMT trade will net you ~400M ISK for 1 GTC (35$) — for the rate of about 8.75$ / 100M ISK — this is evidently $$/game-time conversion that is acceptable for the majority of players.

A quick check of what is available “illegally” gives price that is about 3$ / 100M. So there is quite large disconnect between game time valuation of *actual players* (the ones willing to sell their ISK legally for 2nd in-game currency) and *farmers* (the ones who try to make a living out of this).

Farmers can’t participate in legal RMT market (because there’s no [easy] to convert in-game 2nd currency into RL cash), so they operate by undercutting legal market — and as you can see they are able to undercut by quite a lot. As long as there’s this huge disparity between wages/income between the poor (China et all) and the rich (actual game players), it is highly probable that illegal RMT organizations will be able to undercut legal RMT market with ease — unless you completely flood the game with cheap “printed” money to the point where everyone will have more than enough in-game money by spending a single dollar or so.

Well, the easy solution is to give the player his mount automatically at level 40.
Then you have the best armour in the game at level 40, lets give him that too.
Oh, and a weapon would be good too.
In fact lets make everything time based, you played to level 40, you are exactly the same as evry other level 40.
Now go and find the fun in your game. There has to be an element of grinding (hard work) if you want that sense of achievment.

@Brask

In every game you will need to farm something.
No, i tell a lie, you can automatically give players X when they do certain actions back to back. As in level up.
What you now got is people ‘farming’ levels.
But, i can hear it now, a good game designer will make the process of levelling fun!
So, now each player has to follow a certain track to keep the quests and levelling going.
Yeah, it’s fun, right up until you don’t want to follow a track that someone else has laid out for you.
It works in games like Tetris, but not in a game that seems to offer a world for you to inhabit with all the choices available in such a construct.

And to both of you, there has never been a game in the history of humankind that doesn’t incorporate the ‘hard work’ metaphor.

Think about playing chess, think about playing an instrument.
No Pain no gain, it’s just that MMORPG’s allow someone to pay to get rid of the pain.
Most other ‘games’ in our lives can’t be worked like that. Which makes the ‘real world money for in game benefits’ attitude more unpalatable for more people

Thats exactly it! The anti-RMT devs and players would have you believe that your typical MMOG is a “fair and level playing field” that would be distorted by RMT, but it is NOT. You are expected to expand TIME on it (and lots of it = eg: played years) – a commodity considered far more valuable than mere RL currency.

This type of economy would unfairly favor players who play at dusk vs those that play at night or during the day, since the maple syrup will flow more freely then.