RMT and other gaming conflicts

[Nekojin]

There’s been a lot of discussion about the Diablo 3 RMT (Real Money Transfer) Auction House in other threads, and I think it’s a worthwhile discussion on its own right, without derailing other threads.

I’m going to say some things that some people will view as very controversial, and I want you to please read and think about all of this before responding.

From an ethical standpoint, there are many things that have a mixed reception among multiplayer game players, particularly RPGs, and especially MMORPGs. RMT (Real Money Trading), Twinking (giving powerful items to someone who hasn’t technically earned it), and Power-leveling (high-level players assisting lower-level players in defeating challenges much faster than they could normally). All of these have some detractors and some defenders.

From the game’s perspective, there is functionally no difference between RMT, Twinking, Power-leveling, and helping a friend. None whatsoever. Consider the following scenarios.

1.) All of the raiding members of Guild A have defeated Bastion of Twilight 25-man (BoT), and none of them need any items from the loot list for BoT. A newer guildmember named Skippy finally reaches 85, and in an effort to get Skippy up to current content, Guild A members offer to run Skippy through BoT a few times to get some equipment for him and bring him up more-or-less up to speed with the rest of the guild.
2.) Guild A offers to run Skippy’s brother Thumper (who isn’t in the guild) through BoT for 10k gold, and Thumper gets all drops related to his class.
3.) Guild A offers to run Thumper through BoT in exchange for mowing Skippy’s lawn.
4.) Guild A offers to run Thumper through BoT for $20.
5.) Guild A offers to sell Thumper specific drops from BoT for 10k gold, and they’ll run him through as many times as it takes to get X item that you want.
6.) Guild A offers to sell Thumper specific drops from BoT for $20.

And there are many other variations on these themes. Note that only 2 and 5 are even traceable to any degree (since there’s gold being exchanged), and the ones that are most objectionable and the ones that are least objectionable are completely indistinguishable, from the perspective of a GM or other admin.

So, with all of that in mind, I have a question for those of you who object to RMT in games, and especially to Blizzard’s implementation of the RMT Auction House in Diablo 3. How do you stop it? How do you combat something that you’re functionally unable to detect?

If you can’t stop it, is there a point to making a rule about it? Isn’t a rule that you don’t (or can’t) enforce actually worse than no rule at all?

[Gravekeeper]

So, with all of that in mind, I have a question for those of you who object to RMT in games, and especially to Blizzard’s implementation of the RMT Auction House in Diablo 3. How do you stop it? How do you combat something that you’re functionally unable to detect?

If you can’t stop it, is there a point to making a rule about it? Isn’t a rule that you don’t (or can’t) enforce actually worse than no rule at all?

....What? Seeing as practically every MMO company has been able to detect and correct such issues if they choose to do so simply through monitoring game metrics and player's self regulating themselves? It's never been a matter of detection. Its always been a matter of enforcement.

As for stopping it, yes, in an MMO you do want to stop it because it effectively ruins the game's balance. Entire server economies have been destroyed in WoW due to RMT. Twinking totally ruined low level BGs for years. DaoC's economy collapsed due to RMT. So did Aeon's. Any MMO that does not attempt to regulate RMT will quickly find its game mechanics broken in some way by RMT.

None of your examples are really RMT though. They're all "Friend A helping Friend B". RMT would be Guild A is really a company that employs people that play the game 24/7 in 8 hour shifts and will sell anyone gold/exp/items/dungeon credit for $ on their website regardless of whether their character has any right to it.

As long as a game has a power scale, it can be broken by RMT to the detriment of other players who do not want or cannot afford RMT. Why the hell would you want to buy a game that would require you to pay *more* money after that just for it to treat you fairly?

[Andara Bledin]

Except that "friend A helping friend B" is RMT if there's any exchange outside the game.

It's just the opposite end of the spectrum from the professional gold-farming houses.

^-.-^

[Hyena Dandy]

I think GK's point was that the gold-farming houses are the ones that the rules are in place to stop.

Maybe?

[Gravekeeper]

I think GK's point was that the gold-farming houses are the ones that the rules are in place to stop.

Maybe?

Correct. It doesn't effect the game if you run Jerry through a dungeon in exchange for mowing your lawn. It does effect the game if you shower 100 Jerrys with 5000 times the gold and items they should have at their level in exchange for $100 each. Because you immediately create a disparity in power between Jerry and Frank, the guy who just likes playing the game without having to pay more for it than he already is. Who now can't wander into a BG without being one shot or afford any gear for his character with the gold he legitimately earned because RMT has driven up all the AH prices with inflation.

[Nyoibo]

How does it help so much when all the items aer level restricted, I mean, yeah, you go and buy kickass armour of the gods, but if you can't wear it until lvl 60 hows it going to help your starting character.

[Andara Bledin]

As an aside, D3 has a strict limit of 10 items up for sale in the Gold Auction House. It remains to be seen if this is also in effect for the RMTAH.

As for imbalance, there's really no difference in a group of people selling fancy crap to interested buyers and, say, UberGuild power-leveling and pimping out every one of their players to get all 1000 of them (and their sister-guilds, too) up to top raiding spec. Except for the fact that UberGuild beneficiaries are more likely to know how to play than the random RMT buyer.

I'm one of those casual people who is never at the top tier of anything, and I've never cared either way about whether I had it or not or what method anyone else took to get it. I've always slogged along the hard way because that's my personal preference. But I know that not everybody has the hundreds of hours to put into video games that I do and I don't begrudge them taking a different approach. And in games that don't even have PvP or even a ladder, I don't see why it really would matter to anyone not otherwise trying to bask in the glow of their e-peen or jealous of how easy other people get to have it ("I walked uphill in the snow, both ways, you whippersnappers!" *shakes cane*).

^-.-^

[Nekojin]

....What? Seeing as practically every MMO company has been able to detect and correct such issues if they choose to do so simply through monitoring game metrics and player's self regulating themselves? It's never been a matter of detection. Its always been a matter of enforcement.

Which is most of my point - even when they can detect it (and we can't really say how well they detect it, because that data isn't public), it's a case of closing the gate after the horses have escaped. If you ban the gold-sellers, they'll make new accounts, but they've already made a profit. If you ban the buyers, you're depleting your own player base.

As for stopping it, yes, in an MMO you do want to stop it because it effectively ruins the game's balance. Entire server economies have been destroyed in WoW due to RMT. Twinking totally ruined low level BGs for years. DaoC's economy collapsed due to RMT. So did Aeon's. Any MMO that does not attempt to regulate RMT will quickly find its game mechanics broken in some way by RMT.

Which brings us back to the question of: HOW do you stop it?

None of your examples are really RMT though. They're all "Friend A helping Friend B". RMT would be Guild A is really a company that employs people that play the game 24/7 in 8 hour shifts and will sell anyone gold/exp/items/dungeon credit for $ on their website regardless of whether their character has any right to it.

The "running someone through a dungeon for $20" is very much RMT. RMT is "real money trade." And from the game's perspective, there's no difference between a group that runs a dungeon with a few pubbies and a group that runs the dungeon with a few players who paid cash for the privilege of being there. For the same reason, it's impossible to tell the difference between someone who gives 20k gold to his nephew as a birthday present and someone who sells 20k gold to a stranger. The only way to detect it is a pattern of behavior - and by that time, like I said, the horse has already fled the corral.

As long as a game has a power scale, it can be broken by RMT to the detriment of other players who do not want or cannot afford RMT. Why the hell would you want to buy a game that would require you to pay *more* money after that just for it to treat you fairly?

This brings me back to my central point: How do you stop it? WoW's efforts to stop gold-selling have done nothing to actually stop it - they've just hampered the active advertising of it. While I agree with playing a game within the rules laid out, not everyone does. And if you have a rule against RMT, and you're effectively unable to stop RMT, what good does the rule actually do?

[Hyena Dandy]

I think what Neko's arguing is essentially the same thing as anti-piracy measures.

That the company needs to see the pirates (or in this case, RMT-people) as competition, rather than threat.

[Nekojin]

I think what Neko's arguing is essentially the same thing as anti-piracy measures.

That the company needs to see the pirates (or in this case, RMT-people) as competition, rather than threat.

That's certainly one way to look at it. By offering a superior "product" (authorized RMT through a secured server, without any risk of being scammed), few people would choose to go to unknown third-party companies for RMT.

[Gravekeeper]

How does it help so much when all the items aer level restricted, I mean, yeah, you go and buy kickass armour of the gods, but if you can't wear it until lvl 60 hows it going to help your starting character.

WoW *didn't* have a level restriction in place for years when it came to enchantments. Nor did Blizzard show any interest in fixing it. You could slap a level 60 enchant on a level 10 weapon no problem. But you could only do so if you had the funds of a level 60 character.

Likewise, if a game's economy is balanced around a certain level of power per level based on the average earning power of a character of that level, then RMT can and will fuck it up.

Which is most of my point - even when they can detect it (and we can't really say how well they detect it, because that data isn't public), it's a case of closing the gate after the horses have escaped. If you ban the gold-sellers, they'll make new accounts, but they've already made a profit. If you ban the buyers, you're depleting your own player base.

If you ban the goldseller and they make a new account, then you profit through enforcement. If you ban a player that's willing to break your terms of service and unbalance your game thus ruining it for others, why is that a bad thing?

One asshole can ruin the experience of several other players. Its not economically feasible to keep the asshole around.

Which brings us back to the question of: HOW do you stop it?

Through enforcement, like I said. Its all up to how willing a company is to police its own game. Some companies are good at it, others suck ass at it and the player base benefits or suffers in kind.

But the fact of the matter is as long as a game has a power scale in a multiplayer environment that must be climbed through effort and playtime, any form of RMT will disrupt the balance of the game and/or result in a rift in the player base between those that play the game and those that pay money to not have to play the game. As long as the latter gains an advantage over the former through economic means, you're going to have a problem. Because players are not on equal economic footing *outside* of the game.

Why should someone that can just barely afford their subscription be at a disadvantage to someone who can afford to toss away $50 a week in a video game?

RMT can exist in games that do *not* have a power scale, such as TF2 or EVE Online. EVE especially has a clever design that killed RMT and gold selling entirely. Players can simply pay to receive an item in game that grants a 30 day extension to a subscription. Which they can then sell to other players for in game currency. Killed two birds with one stone. It offers a way to "buy" in game currency from other players while making sure the company itself still profits. While players can actually play for "free" by using in game money to pay for their subs.

But EVE's design doesn't have a power scale. Having lots of money doesn't help you gain a huge advantage. Because money is just a resource EVE. You lose it constantly through the act of playing and there are no "epic items" or other such things you could buy with it to tip the balance in your favour. Plus you risk anything you own in EVE just by playing EVE.

Thus is the problem. As long as you have a traditionally built MMORPG, such as WoW, you're going to disrupt it by having RMT. Whole WoW servers have had their economies ruined due to gold selling. In Aeon it was so bad you couldn't actually afford to buy ANYTHING on the AH unless you bought gold. Because they had no enforcement whatsoever of RMT.

In order to use RMT successfully and without player headaches, it has to be in a game designed to have RMT and where RMT only awards convenience or cosmetics. Not straight up power over others. Especially if the game has any sort of competition or PVP to it.

No one should lose because they can't afford to win.

[Nekojin]

WoW *didn't* have a level restriction in place for years when it came to enchantments. Nor did Blizzard show any interest in fixing it. You could slap a level 60 enchant on a level 10 weapon no problem. But you could only do so if you had the funds of a level 60 character.

Is there a functional difference between someone who twinks his own alt and someone who twinks other peoples' alts for a price?

Likewise, if a game's economy is balanced around a certain level of power per level based on the average earning power of a character of that level, then RMT can and will fuck it up.

But someone STILL has to earn it. If the RMT is somehow affecting the balance of play, that hints more to the lack of money-sinks in the game than anything else. If the RMT suddenly vanished - if it somehow became possible to insulate the in-game resources from ANY out-of-game meddling (and let's face it, that's impossible), you'd still have game-imbalancing sums of gold and weapons floating around the economy. It's not as though the RMT is actually generating gold out of thin air. Even the so-called "Chinese gold-sellers" have to actually earn it in one way or another.

If you ban the goldseller and they make a new account, then you profit through enforcement. If you ban a player that's willing to break your terms of service and unbalance your game thus ruining it for others, why is that a bad thing?

The gold has still been sold. If the gold-seller has a reasonable expectation of being banned after any sale of gold, he'd just amass a large sum and sell it all in one lump some, rather than selling it in smaller quantities. After banning him, you've functionally changed nothing.

One asshole can ruin the experience of several other players. Its not economically feasible to keep the asshole around.

And, as I've illustrated in the first post, there are a lot of "assholes" (people who do things that are functionally equivalent to the behavior you dislike) that you're willing to keep around.

Through enforcement, like I said. Its all up to how willing a company is to police its own game. Some companies are good at it, others suck ass at it and the player base benefits or suffers in kind.

It's not just a willingness to police, it's an issue of ability to police. If you ban everyone every time they do something questionable, you end up nuking a good chunk of your player base. So you have to wait for a pattern to emerge... and in the meantime, the gold-selling continues.

But the fact of the matter is as long as a game has a power scale in a multiplayer environment that must be climbed through effort and playtime, any form of RMT will disrupt the balance of the game and/or result in a rift in the player base between those that play the game and those that pay money to not have to play the game. As long as the latter gains an advantage over the former through economic means, you're going to have a problem. Because players are not on equal economic footing *outside* of the game.

Who cares? There's always an imbalance. Some people have more time to dedicate to gaming. Some people have more money. Some people have both, or neither. There's no such thing as a level playing field, and there never has been. There's only been the illusion of such.

Why should someone that can just barely afford their subscription be at a disadvantage to someone who can afford to toss away $50 a week in a video game?

Why should someone who can only play for a few hours a week be at a disadvantage to someone who can afford to play for 40+ hours a week?

RMT can exist in games that do *not* have a power scale, such as TF2 or EVE Online. EVE especially has a clever design that killed RMT and gold selling entirely. Players can simply pay to receive an item in game that grants a 30 day extension to a subscription. Which they can then sell to other players for in game currency. Killed two birds with one stone. It offers a way to "buy" in game currency from other players while making sure the company itself still profits. While players can actually play for "free" by using in game money to pay for their subs.

You do realize that the EVE PLEX items are a relatively recent development, right? They've had RMT without CCP being involved for years before they introduced the PLEX concept.

Also note that PLEX is a very real money sink - PLEX are physical items that have to be moved about to be traded. They can be destroyed of the ship they're in gets blown up, and there's at least one reported incident of hundreds of PLEX being blown up all at once. That's over a thousand dollars' worth of game-time payments being blown up. This is, in fact, deliberate on CCP's part.

But EVE's design doesn't have a power scale. Having lots of money doesn't help you gain a huge advantage. Because money is just a resource EVE. You lose it constantly through the act of playing and there are no "epic items" or other such things you could buy with it to tip the balance in your favour. Plus you risk anything you own in EVE just by playing EVE.

Which is another way of saying that EVE has robust money-sinks.

Thus is the problem. As long as you have a traditionally built MMORPG, such as WoW, you're going to disrupt it by having RMT. Whole WoW servers have had their economies ruined due to gold selling. In Aeon it was so bad you couldn't actually afford to buy ANYTHING on the AH unless you bought gold. Because they had no enforcement whatsoever of RMT.

Again, the gold was already in the economy. The gold-sellers were just moving it around. These "ruined economies" speak more of a problem with there being too much money in the economy and not enough to spend it on.

[Gravekeeper]

Is there a functional difference between someone who twinks his own alt and someone who twinks other peoples' alts for a price?

The amount of twinks running around?

But someone STILL has to earn it. If the RMT is somehow affecting the balance of play, that hints more to the lack of money-sinks in the game than anything else.

No, its an external force affecting the balance of a game that was not designed around allowing an external force. This is the issue. A game that was not designed around RMT or microtransactions or whatever, can have its balanced disrupted by such activities. Allowing such activities simply because its easier to embrace rather than police is terrible reasoning. What about people that just want to play a game and have that game be a level playing field that treats them fairly?

RMT/Goldselling disrupts the balance of a traditional MMORPG. That's a fact. We've already seen it happen numerous times. Yes, you can incorporate RMT/Goldselling into a game in the form of microtransactions or a real money auction house. But to do so successfully means to change the design of the game to allow such a thing.

In which case: What about the players that want to play the traditional game and not the game where their real world wallet becomes a factor in success?

If the RMT suddenly vanished - if it somehow became possible to insulate the in-game resources from ANY out-of-game meddling (and let's face it, that's impossible), you'd still have game-imbalancing sums of gold and weapons floating around the economy. It's not as though the RMT is actually generating gold out of thin air. Even the so-called "Chinese gold-sellers" have to actually earn it in one way or another.

They are not generating it out of thin air, but they are generating it through applying more playtime than the average human is capable of and are likely doing it by finding the most gold per hour avenue of profit they can and denying access to it that source to other players. Or through disrupting the activities of regular players.

Goldfarmers are typically running several bots at once that they're keeping tabs on and those bots are essentially strip mining a resource. A resource which they'll run other players off of if they try to likewise utilize it. In order to achieve the same affect, you would need a group of 4-8 players that play 24/7 doing one activity over and over and then passing all of their income to a single player. I scenario you're not going to see normally unless one player is running a cult.

The gold has still been sold. If the gold-seller has a reasonable expectation of being banned after any sale of gold, he'd just amass a large sum and sell it all in one lump some, rather than selling it in smaller quantities. After banning him, you've functionally changed nothing.

You ban both him and the people that recieved said large sum thus removing it from the economy. The typical MMO datamines a huge amount of game metrics. Its not like the gold mysteriously vanishes once the goldseller gives it to someone.

And, as I've illustrated in the first post, there are a lot of "assholes" (people who do things that are functionally equivalent to the behavior you dislike) that you're willing to keep around.

Such as?

It's not just a willingness to police, it's an issue of ability to police. If you ban everyone every time they do something questionable, you end up nuking a good chunk of your player base. So you have to wait for a pattern to emerge... and in the meantime, the gold-selling continues.

I seriously do not understand your position. As it seems to be "We should just let people ruin our game because stopping them would take effort"?

Who cares? There's always an imbalance. Some people have more time to dedicate to gaming. Some people have more money. Some people have both, or neither. There's no such thing as a level playing field, and there never has been. There's only been the illusion of such.

Those imbalances exist within the ruleset of the game and the game is designed around them. The entire point of a game as opposed to real life is to have a playing field that is level to all of its players.

Who wants to play a game thats unfair? Seriously? You'd seriously buy a game that said "Well, its $60 for the game, but $120 if you want it to be fair"?

Why should someone who can only play for a few hours a week be at a disadvantage to someone who can afford to play for 40+ hours a week?

Time is a completely different issue and a strawman argument. Time is accounted for within the game design. We're taking about an external force altering game balance.

You do realize that the EVE PLEX items are a relatively recent development, right? They've had RMT without CCP being involved for years before they introduced the PLEX concept.

PLEX has been around for 4 years. I fail to see why that makes it less of a clever idea.

Also note that PLEX is a very real money sink - PLEX are physical items that have to be moved about to be traded. They can be destroyed of the ship they're in gets blown up, and there's at least one reported incident of hundreds of PLEX being blown up all at once. That's over a thousand dollars' worth of game-time payments being blown up. This is, in fact, deliberate on CCP's part.

I know, I *play* EVE. =p

And the guy in question was an amazing dipshit. You don't undock with PLEX. Especially not in a Tech I Frigate into the middle of Jita. Its basically the equavilent of running a naked level 3 Orc into Stormwind.

Which is another way of saying that EVE has robust money-sinks.

Not exactly, the design of EVE is atypical. It has no levels, only assets. But the assets you can utilize are limited by your current skills. There is no way to buy an advantage nor any way to grind your skills faster than everyone else. You also risk any asset you make use of.

You can't buy an advantage. You can only risk more of your assets within the confines of your abilities.

The reason I bring up EVE is because its an example of a non-traditional game design that functionally elimates goldselling by forcing it to compete directly with CCP. Without generating huge imbalances. IE the sort of thing you seem to be endorsing.

The problem is that its non-traditional and you're arguing about allowing it into a traditional game. Where it has classically caused massive issues. Which is a problem. You cannot allow an external force into a game if that force will unbalance the game. You're just sacrificing one type of player for another. If you so desperately want RMT in a game, it has to have a design that can absorb RMT without causing huge imbalances between playing players and paying players.

Some people just want to play a game. Not have to keep paying for the game they already bought just for it to stay fair.

Again, the gold was already in the economy. The gold-sellers were just moving it around. These "ruined economies" speak more of a problem with there being too much money in the economy and not enough to spend it on.

No, a goldfarmer generates gold at a level and rate unintended by the developers or the game's design. Goldfarmers don't play the game the same way as everyone else and just magically have more gold. They find the most exploitable method of profit then devote more resources at exploiting it then any normal player ever possibly could. Typically by using bots or other means 24/7. While at the same time denying the method to legitimate players.

Blizzard didn't design WoW around the possibility that 8 characters would be able to stay awake doing the same task 24 hours a day then give everything they earn away to one level 10 character that just started playing.

[Nekojin]

RMT/Goldselling disrupts the balance of a traditional MMORPG. That's a fact. We've already seen it happen numerous times.

I think you'd have to do a lot of work to prove that it's the RMT that is the driving force for the problems. I believe that it's a convenient and visible scapegoat, not the actual problem.

In which case: What about the players that want to play the traditional game and not the game where their real world wallet becomes a factor in success?

Anything a for-cash twink can do in WoW, a normal, non-cash-spending player can do. It requires a bit more time, and it may require having a decent guild at your back, but as you said - time is well accounted for in the development process.

They are not generating it out of thin air, but they are generating it through applying more playtime than the average human is capable of and are likely doing it by finding the most gold per hour avenue of profit they can and denying access to it that source to other players. Or through disrupting the activities of regular players.

Goldfarmers are typically running several bots at once that they're keeping tabs on and those bots are essentially strip mining a resource. A resource which they'll run other players off of if they try to likewise utilize it. In order to achieve the same affect, you would need a group of 4-8 players that play 24/7 doing one activity over and over and then passing all of their income to a single player. I scenario you're not going to see normally unless one player is running a cult.

Bots are a separate issue - please don't conflate them. Bots are fairly easy to detect, and as far as I know, Blizzard has done a pretty good job at bot-stomping.

I've seen plenty of live groups doing exactly what you're talking about as well. 16-hour play cycles, multiple players switching out on an account to keep it going 24-7. All of these are things that normal (IE, non-gold-seller) players do as well.

So, again, suppose we take the RMT out of it. Make it so that it's impossible somehow. A Wizard Did it. People still play for unhealthy amounts of time, generating huge sums of in-game currency that they then have little use for, nothing significant to spend it on. So if they start dishing out their cash to other players, you'd see the exact same destabilizing effect.

You ban both him and the people that recieved said large sum thus removing it from the economy. The typical MMO datamines a huge amount of game metrics. Its not like the gold mysteriously vanishes once the goldseller gives it to someone.

As I keep saying, you can't just ban someone just because a large sum of gold changes hands. That's a good way to lose valued customers. And I have yet to hear of Blizzard banning players for buying gold.

That aside, even if we agree that banning gold-buyers is a good idea, you still have the problem of the gold itself. Unless you're banning them within minutes of the transfer, odds are good that they've already bought the items that they were buying the gold for in the first place, and the gold is still in the economy.

I assert, still, that the problem is a lack of sufficient gold-sinks in the economy. There's not enough places drawing down the average player gold, so you have persistent inflation going on, and the only practical gold-sinks (in WoW) end up being one-off vanity items, rather than ongoing expenses. Who needs more than one land mount and one air mount? While top-tier raiding with high-end potions, repair costs, and so on are a bit of a gold-sink, it's not a very big one.

I seriously do not understand your position. As it seems to be "We should just let people ruin our game because stopping them would take effort"?

No, my position is that it's functionally impossible to stop it, and it's a process that costs the developers money to police, while failing to generate any (significant) income to offset that cost. When you get a procedure that is relatively effective at catching the current wave of gold-sellers, they'll figure out what you're doing and change their behaviors to avoid being noticed.

So rather than rail against something you can't really stop, it's more effective to find some way to turn it around, and make it into something that benefits the community.

Those imbalances exist within the ruleset of the game and the game is designed around them. The entire point of a game as opposed to real life is to have a playing field that is level to all of its players.

Who wants to play a game thats unfair? Seriously? You'd seriously buy a game that said "Well, its $60 for the game, but $120 if you want it to be fair"?

As I said before, there's no such thing as a fair game. There's always something tipping the scales. An Arena team that uses Ventrilo for coordination has an advantage over a team that doesn't use voice chat. A team that practices six hours a day has an advantage over a team that doesn't practice. A coordinated team has an advantage over a PUG face-rolling team. Such is the way it works.

Time is a completely different issue and a strawman argument. Time is accounted for within the game design. We're taking about an external force altering game balance.

I disagree that it's a strawman, it's simply a point you don't want to argue against. Teenagers and post-teens who spend 10+ hours a day in-game have a destabilizing factor on game economies, and while they're not playing around the clock individually, there's more of them, so the effect they cause ends up being greater - you just don't choose to view it as a problem.

PLEX has been around for 4 years. I fail to see why that makes it less of a clever idea.

I didn't say that it wasn't a clever idea. I was pointing out that RMT has been in EVE since long before CCCP introduced PLEX, and it was even tacitly accepted by the devs. There was even a forum for monitored trading of in-game funds for subscription purchases.

And the guy in question was an amazing dipshit. You don't undock with PLEX. Especially not in a Tech I Frigate into the middle of Jita. Its basically the equavilent of running a naked level 3 Orc into Stormwind.

Except that the Orc can't possibly lose $1200 worth of gear in the process. And I agree, it was a dipshit move. I'd love to hear the explanation behind it.

Not exactly, the design of EVE is atypical. It has no levels, only assets. But the assets you can utilize are limited by your current skills. There is no way to buy an advantage nor any way to grind your skills faster than everyone else. You also risk any asset you make use of.

You can't buy an advantage. You can only risk more of your assets within the confines of your abilities.

That's not really true. You can buy a character from another player, and CCCP even supports it (they'll transfer a character from one account to another for a fee). So I could spend a few hundred dollars (or whatever the going rate is), and buy a character with the skills and ships that I wanted.

The reason I bring up EVE is because its an example of a non-traditional game design that functionally elimates goldselling by forcing it to compete directly with CCP. Without generating huge imbalances. IE the sort of thing you seem to be endorsing.

The problem is that its non-traditional and you're arguing about allowing it into a traditional game. Where it has classically caused massive issues. Which is a problem. You cannot allow an external force into a game if that force will unbalance the game. You're just sacrificing one type of player for another. If you so desperately want RMT in a game, it has to have a design that can absorb RMT without causing huge imbalances between playing players and paying players.

Some people just want to play a game. Not have to keep paying for the game they already bought just for it to stay fair.

And I'm trying to point out that the division that you want is functionally impossible. It's a pie-in-the-sky dream. There isn't a game out there where spending real-money cash is the only way to get to the top. The few games that have sold top-tier gear to players directly have died.

No, a goldfarmer generates gold at a level and rate unintended by the developers or the game's design. Goldfarmers don't play the game the same way as everyone else and just magically have more gold. They find the most exploitable method of profit then devote more resources at exploiting it then any normal player ever possibly could. Typically by using bots or other means 24/7. While at the same time denying the method to legitimate players.

Everything you say here (right up until you mention bots, and sometimes even then) can be applied to so-called power-gamers - people who play a game for great amounts of their free time, and angle for every edge they can find. But that's considered socially acceptable.

Blizzard didn't design WoW around the possibility that 8 characters would be able to stay awake doing the same task 24 hours a day then give everything they earn away to one level 10 character that just started playing.

It may not be by design, but it's possible. And extremely difficult, if not outright impossible, to stop. I know people (in the guild I usually run with, when I play WoW) who have bought gold repeatedly. They choose to do so, and they'll freely loan gold to guildmates when asked. They just choose to buy the gold, and play Battlegrounds or Arenas (or other less-profitable ways to spend their time) than spending hours farming.

[Gravekeeper]

I think you'd have to do a lot of work to prove that it's the RMT that is the driving force for the problems. I believe that it's a convenient and visible scapegoat, not the actual problem.

I've played far too many MMOs where RMT/Goldselling has toppled a server's balance. These games aren't designed to handle such things, but that doesn't mean that the answer is to just allow such things. This is my point of contention here. If a game is being ruined by something, you don't just throw up your hands and say "Oh well, can't stop it, may as well let anarchy rein".

Anything a for-cash twink can do in WoW, a normal, non-cash-spending player can do. It requires a bit more time, and it may require having a decent guild at your back, but as you said - time is well accounted for in the development process.

But just because one determined person wants to be a dick, doesn't mean you should open the flood gates and let everyone be a dick. Your players who aren't dicks will leave. My entire bloody guild did. Our server sunk under gold selling ( the inflation it caused collapsed the AH economy ) and it was impossible for any of us to pvp against the horde of twinks in the BGs. They could simply one shot an untwinked player.

Not exactly happy fun time for your normal customers.

Bots are a separate issue - please don't conflate them. Bots are fairly easy to detect, and as far as I know, Blizzard has done a pretty good job at bot-stomping.

They're not a seperate issue. They're very much one of the core issues with gold farmer and Blizzard hasn't done that well at bot stomping. Nothing like seeing a congo line of 4 taurens with slightly different names wearing the same equipment just beelining every mob and resource node in a given area on autopilot.

I've seen plenty of live groups doing exactly what you're talking about as well. 16-hour play cycles, multiple players switching out on an account to keep it going 24-7. All of these are things that normal (IE, non-gold-seller) players do as well.

I'd hardly call that normal. "I can be equal if I play the game like a job just like the people who are playing it like a job" isn't a good thing either.

So, again, suppose we take the RMT out of it. Make it so that it's impossible somehow. A Wizard Did it. People still play for unhealthy amounts of time, generating huge sums of in-game currency that they then have little use for, nothing significant to spend it on. So if they start dishing out their cash to other players, you'd see the exact same destabilizing effect.

The answer is not just allowing RMT though. See, this is my problem. If a game is not designed with RMT in mind, you don't address RMT but simply allowing it. Also, just adding massive money sinks can have the opposite effect and drive people *to* purchase gold. WoW has some of the most ridiculous money sinks of any game I've ever played. Which might be why they don't try too hard to deal with goldselling.

As I keep saying, you can't just ban someone just because a large sum of gold changes hands. That's a good way to lose valued customers. And I have yet to hear of Blizzard banning players for buying gold.

A customer that is breaking your TOS is not a valued customer. Blizzard bans people for buying gold all the time by following the papertrail. Forcing the goldsellers to get more creative to elude the detection flag parameters.

Its against their TOS. End of story. WoW banned people for it. DaoC banned people for it. Warhammer banned people for it. Hell, Warhammer use to keep a running counter of the bans on their main website as a laugh.

That aside, even if we agree that banning gold-buyers is a good idea, you still have the problem of the gold itself. Unless you're banning them within minutes of the transfer, odds are good that they've already bought the items that they were buying the gold for in the first place, and the gold is still in the economy.

You really think they don't log this stuff? ;p

It being still in the economy is half the problem though. Again, this is my point here. The balance of the game is designed around a certain amount of average earning power per gamer of gold going into the economy. Goldfarmers tilt that average earning power higher. Adding more gold to the economy than the game is designed to adjust for.

When that happens, you get scenarios like my old WoW server and my old DaoC server: AH prices go up due to the inflation resulting in items that were normally obtainable by non goldbuyers to now be unaffordable for them. Forcing people who are not goldbuyers to either buy gold to keep up or simply quit and find another game thats better balanced. And who wants to play a game that forces you to pay to keep up?

It ruins the game balance.

I assert, still, that the problem is a lack of sufficient gold-sinks in the economy. There's not enough places drawing down the average player gold, so you have persistent inflation going on, and the only practical gold-sinks (in WoW) end up being one-off vanity items, rather than ongoing expenses. Who needs more than one land mount and one air mount? While top-tier raiding with high-end potions, repair costs, and so on are a bit of a gold-sink, it's not a very big one.

While you're correct in that it is partially a matter of economic balance in the design, that balance isn't being helped by goldselling or RMT. If a game wasn't designed with goldselling/RMT factored into its metrics, it will be unbalanced by them as an external force. Just adding gold sinks won't fix it though and can even encourage it if handled poorly.

Earning power itself needs to be reduced. EVE does this all the time adjusting earning power, resource supply vs demand, etc. But EVE keeps two full time economists on staff. Something WoW should probably consider instead of hiring clinical psychologists to help them craft addictive activities. ;p

I think we're in relative agreement as to the causes here, just not the solution.

So rather than rail against something you can't really stop, it's more effective to find some way to turn it around, and make it into something that benefits the community.

You don't benefit a community by charging it more money though. My problem here is that people, such as myself, just want to play a game online thats *fair*. Just because unfair shit is possible doesn't mean you should just embrace the unfairness and pass it on to your customers.

As I said before, there's no such thing as a fair game. There's always something tipping the scales. An Arena team that uses Ventrilo for coordination has an advantage over a team that doesn't use voice chat. A team that practices six hours a day has an advantage over a team that doesn't practice. A coordinated team has an advantage over a PUG face-rolling team. Such is the way it works.

This is a seperate issue though and not one that involves using an external force as a shortcut. Games attempt to account for differences in playtime and skill level. They don't tend to account for someone being richer than someone else IRL though and bringing that as a factor into a game is rather dubious. The people you speak of are succeeding because of skill, not fatter wallets.

Everyone has a chance to develop skill. Not everyone has a ton of money they can just throw away at entertainment.

I disagree that it's a strawman, it's simply a point you don't want to argue against.

Lot of words put in my mouth there. -.-

I didn't say that it wasn't a clever idea. I was pointing out that RMT has been in EVE since long before CCCP introduced PLEX, and it was even tacitly accepted by the devs. There was even a forum for monitored trading of in-game funds for subscription purchases.

And my point is that EVE is a game whose design can incorporate it that has checks and balances to ensure it doesn't go off the rails. In order for a game to have RMT/Goldselling of this nature, it must be of a game design that can incorporate it on a level basis for its players. CCP created a mutually beneficial arrangement. One gets gold, the other gets subscription time for in game money. Its clever and I wish more games would incorporate something like that.

But.....EVE can pull this off because its levelless and doesn't have traditional RPG trappings such as bind on equip or epic items. Its also a hardcore UO style game where you risk what you use just by using it. It functions within the confines of the game's design and benefits the community while shutting out third parties like goldfarmers who don't give a rats ass about respecting the community or the game's mechanics.

EVE's confines are much different from a traditional MMO like WoW. Which is why it can work there. A traditional MMO, such as WoW, can have its economy and balance fly apart when RMT/Goldselling is introduced. Because it wasn't designed with it in mind. Hell, WoW isn't even designed with its own non-goldbuying earning power in mind.

The answer isn't just allowing RMT/Goldselling though, its designing a game that can handle it by incorporating it fairly or managing the metric of an existing game better. The problem is the traditional MMO doesn't handle it well because it always uses a very wide powerscale and allows too much effectiveness to be netted from equipment rather than player skill. You can buy too much power and you have no risk of losing it after you buy it.

Except that the Orc can't possibly lose $1200 worth of gear in the process. And I agree, it was a dipshit move. I'd love to hear the explanation behind it.

Me too. But I'm pretty sure the guy quit the game in shame and was never heard from again. Or his corp mates murdered him and hid the body in a shallow grave. >.>

That's not really true. You can buy a character from another player, and CCCP even supports it (they'll transfer a character from one account to another for a fee). So I could spend a few hundred dollars (or whatever the going rate is), and buy a character with the skills and ships that I wanted.

Yes, but note the fine print. CCP does not allow buying a character as an RMT. Also, buying a char with the skills you want really does you jack in EVE as you'll get blown out of the sky due to the disparity in actual player skill. Which is a central problem in WoW and many other traditional MMOs. The ability to simply buy or equip power rather than earn it and learn it.

Also, most people use the char transfer to transfer alts to their main account and visa versa for training purposes. Thats what I used it for.

And I'm trying to point out that the division that you want is functionally impossible. It's a pie-in-the-sky dream. There isn't a game out there where spending real-money cash is the only way to get to the top. The few games that have sold top-tier gear to players directly have died.

Now I'm not quite sure what side you're arguing for or if we're both somehow arguing one side but not realising it.

Everything you say here (right up until you mention bots, and sometimes even then) can be applied to so-called power-gamers - people who play a game for great amounts of their free time, and angle for every edge they can find. But that's considered socially acceptable.

I'm not sure its socially acceptable per say as powergamers tend to be socially derided. But it is EULA acceptable. But a powergamer, regardless of how sad they may be, is devoting their time to bettering their character. Not giving all that betterment to a random level 10 stranger. Hence the term powergamer.

It may not be by design, but it's possible. And extremely difficult, if not outright impossible, to stop. I know people (in the guild I usually run with, when I play WoW) who have bought gold repeatedly. They choose to do so, and they'll freely loan gold to guildmates when asked. They just choose to buy the gold, and play Battlegrounds or Arenas (or other less-profitable ways to spend their time) than spending hours farming.

And to be bluntly honest about it, WoW is kind of too far into the grave with it at this point. Blizzard let go of the reins and the economic horse got away on them. Some MMOs have been pretty good at policing it and I'm sure WoW was much better at it in the early days. But me thinks it got away from them because they keep raising the level cap and have had to keep increasing earning power on top of that. While desperately adding ridiculous money sinks to the game to drain the tub. That only make newer players more likely to buy gold.