Brad McQuaid is a creator of leveling simulators. I don't know if he gets it or not, but the things he (and almost everyone else) produces are depressing and beyond boring. RMT is a *logical* consequence of today's games design (and stunning amount of simply broken game mechanics, that noone bothers to fix). Unless of course everyone is braindead zoo monkey enjoying very, very simple things - in 99.99% fedex & spawnpoint camping for many months. Most people don't fall into that category. Also most people tend to automate repetitive and boring activities.
It's an incredible hipocrysy for McQuaid (or NCSoft, or ...) to say that their games are not designed for RMT, while in reality the design of almost every part of them smells of RMT and botting for 100 miles. That sadly, includes Vanguard as well.
Games like L2 would be long dead without RMT. Especially in Korea, where RMT *is* the reason to play the game. And L2 has been carefully designed to be RMT dependent. Not only that, it's been made more dependent on that with every update so far (note that I don't care about official BS called eula, roc, or whatever else - I look at game design and, in most cases completely broken, game mechanics).
As long as McQuaid and others don't realise what terrible crap they are producing and pushing on market, nothing will change. If you want to see RMT gone, for once, produce something else than boring, buggy, repetitive, crappy, unfinished leveling simulator.
Originally posted by premierebori Individuals do benefit from secondary markets, the people that sell and the people that buy. Game companies lose money, because if I buy a character, I don't pay a few months of monthly fees. Also the community as a whole suffers from this. I don't think it has anything to do with the free market system.
BS. There's NOTHING lost by the game company. Somebody paid the subscription fee while the item was being farmed. Suppose all the farmers stopped all at once. How much revenue would the game company LOSE because they were not there paying monthly fees?
If you buy a character, that character didn't automatically appear somehow. Someone played him up to where he is when you buy him.
Anytime an artist ( or group of artists ) creates something original, so long as they protect their creation through copyrights etc, it is illegal to copy / steal / use inappropriately for personal gain.
If I create a painting, then some months later discover that it's being used in an add campaign by X company without my permission, or perhaps more importantly if it violates the terms of my copyright that company would lose in any US court should a case be brought to trial.
Sure, the designer spent "their own time and efforts" looking at my painting, and then finding a way to exploit it in their own work, but does that time invested equate to ownership ? Not in the least.
There are very strict laws in place to protect people's creations, no matter the format or medium. Look at what happened in the music industry in terms of 'sampling' other people's music in the late 80s / early 90s.
A third party who sells virtual items that were not their own creation, and were not given express written permission to do so A) has zero ownership of said items and is a thief who SHOULD be taken to court and has zero grounds to stand on using the very weak argument of 'time invested', as again, you can look at the Mona Lisa for 20 years solid, but that doesn't mean you own it.
Where I see the secondary market most is in Lineage II, where farmers took over areas to get the resources to sell, should you be stupid/daring enough to wander into "their" land you could get a tell such as "PK, PK, You go now" which would be followed up by a much higher level character killing you if you did not go.
They know how to play and have enough people to fend of even the most dedicated guilds.
How can this be good for the player experience?
Currently Playing:GW2 Currently Following:Elder Scrolls Online Games in my wake:Anarchy Online, Archlord (beta), Asherons Call, Asherons Call 2, City of Heroes, Dark Age of Camelot (SI to Catacombs), DDO, EVE Online, EverQuest II (beta), Guild Wars, Horizons, Lineage II,LORTO, Rift, RF Online (beta), RYL, Saga of Ryzon, Shadowbane, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard, WAR, WoW
Originally posted by severius Originally posted by EThanC Originally posted by _Shadowmage Originally posted by EThanCWrong End User License Agreement
So you are designing a game where you plan to sell me items - and want me to sign a EULA where you reserve the right to delete or modify the item I purchase whenever you feel like it.
Luckily for you there are plenty of stupid people around to play your game. I wont be one of them.
And you're one of them friend because you agree to those terms every single time you log into World of Warcraft, Everquest and practically every mmorpg out there aside from a few of the asian ones such as the Lineage franchise.
Future proof that absolutely nobody reads the EULA that you agree to every single time you log in :P
A. All title, ownership rights and intellectual property rights in and to the Game and all copies thereof (including without limitation any titles, computer code, themes, objects, characters, character names, stories, dialog, catch phrases, locations, concepts, artwork, character inventories, structural or landscape designs, animations, sounds, musical compositions and recordings, audio-visual effects, storylines, character likenesses, methods of operation, moral rights, and any related documentation) are owned or licensed by Blizzard. The Game is protected by the copyright laws of the United States, international treaties and conventions, and other laws. The Game may contain materials licensed by third parties, and the licensors of those materials may enforce their rights in the event of any violation of this License Agreement.
13. Changes to the Agreement. Blizzard reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to change, modify, add to, supplement or delete any of the terms and conditions of this License Agreement when Blizzard upgrades the Game Client, effective upon prior notice as follows: Blizzard will post notification of any such changes to this License Agreement on the World of Warcraft website and will post the revised version of this License Agreement in this location, and may provide such other notice as Blizzard may elect in its sole discretion. If any future changes to this License Agreement are unacceptable to you or cause you to no longer be in compliance with this License Agreement, you may terminate this License Agreement in accordance with Section 5 herein. Your installation and use of any updates or modifications to the Game or your continued use of the Game following notice of changes to this Agreement will demonstrate your acceptance of any and all such changes. Blizzard may change, modify, suspend, or discontinue any aspect of the Game at any time. Blizzard may also impose limits on certain features or restrict your access to parts or all of the Game without notice orliability. You have no interest, monetary or otherwise, in any feature or content contained in the Game.
You do realize that NONE of the above has been tried and tested in a court of law. You are assuming that clicking I agree binds you to this agreement when the fact of the matter is that WoW's agreement and pretty much every single one of them for every mmo on the market is in violation of several state and municipality laws throughout the United States, let alone the world in general. Also, you do realize that there are consumer protection laws that completely and utterly invalidate any EULA because they have you agreeing to set aside rights that by law you may not set aside. Just because its printed doesnt mean you should believe it, let alone because its filled with legalease worded in such a way to discourage the average gamer from researching exactly what rights they do have or dont.
For example in regards to your underlined part, which I assume you did because you are trying to make a point; In china recently laws were passed protecting those virtual items and the individuals that possess them. If you are in china, hack my account and steal my broadsword of uberness +20 you will be jailed. This in and of itself sets precedence that contrary to what blizzard wants you to believe, you do have ownership of your items. The EULA is a binding contract, just the same as any terms of agreement. If it were illegal to include the statements made by Blizzard ( or other companies ) those statements would not be there in the first place. I can guarantee that a team of lawyers in fact came up with the exact wording on the quoted EULA.
And yea, sure that guy in China might face legal charges... because he hacked an account. If he went to a friend's house, logged onto his friend's account and vendored that sword or gave it to a friend there would be zero legal means of proving anything illegal had occured, only that the sword was sold or traded.
Originally posted by Brynn Regardless of who's right, it's inevitable. As long as there are buyers, there will be sellers.
Sadly very turem so I do my bit by not buying.
Currently Playing:GW2 Currently Following:Elder Scrolls Online Games in my wake:Anarchy Online, Archlord (beta), Asherons Call, Asherons Call 2, City of Heroes, Dark Age of Camelot (SI to Catacombs), DDO, EVE Online, EverQuest II (beta), Guild Wars, Horizons, Lineage II,LORTO, Rift, RF Online (beta), RYL, Saga of Ryzon, Shadowbane, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard, WAR, WoW
Can you imagine if it wasn't against the Eula and it was common practise for people to go to the secondary market. Everyone around you wearing items they had attained from a seller outside the game and not through game based mechanisms. Surely, that detracts from the game? What is the game about? Attaining items at the best price outside the game, or playing the game and attaining items?
There is a glaring flaw in the logic of the argument that, if you can afford to pay for in-game items, you should be able to "because it's your money." And the glaring flaw is this:
MMRPGs are a game, with rules. The entire concept of an RPG is character development and item gaining. This is done through grinding/exping. There are the rules - EULAs.. ALL games have rules, and those rules are there for a reason.
Anyone spouting this argument, by their own logic, should find the following scenarios perfectly alright:
You join an amateur volleyball league. But, you don't have enough time to play as you'd like, so you pay to have a professional play for you. Or, because you don't have enough time to play, you pay to have some device put on you that will improve your gameplay. Or maybe you pay to have an extra player on the court.
The problem with this is that the other members of your amateur volleyball league joined that league under certain assumptions. One of those assumptions was that other people who joined that league to play with them would be amateurs, and that they would play by the rules of that league. They don't care if you practice a lot, or if you don't, but they do care that the basic rules of the game are followed.
If a player in a baseball league can afford to pay for money to cork his bat so he can hit farther, is that alright? No. No for the simple reason that it's against the rules.
I agree with a earlier post, as long as there are buyers, there will be sellers. I myself have seen this kinda thing ruin certain aspects of a game. Take for instance crafted items, when i quit WoW the cost of reagents for a crafted item far exceded what you could sell the finished product for on the auction house, mainly due to the value of gold dropping hense higher prices. Not to mention there are far better items out there for cheaper ( im guessing for the most part farmed for gold to sell for RL money?) Anyway, in this instance I know it took from that aspect of the game and this is one of the only crafting systems I have experienced that is actually fun. Maybe it was just designed to be fun leveling up your trade and not after you have maxxed it /shrug...
This is kinda off the subject but I feel the same way about BOTS. Its a multiplayer game not a multi-account game.
Something else I'm seeing alot of nowadays is not only the selling of items, but PLing services.. jeez, whats next?
The RL market, in and of itself, is not evil - but the impact it has on the games is.
Any game with an economy stands to loose money, and therefore not be sucessful, as soon as the bots and shift-farmers show up. Bots and shift-farmers degrade the inherent value of the in-game financial structure by flooding it with money/items and making more of both available than was intended.
This does two things: Drive regular players away because if they don't stoop to gold buying they cannot compete on an even playing field, and it allows the players who do buy gold/items to reach the 'end game' much sooner so they get bored and quit sooner.
Both deprives the game of a subscription - the life-blood of an MMO.
Ultimately there are two kinds of MMO player in the world: One that researches the world, the races, the classes, and finds something they want to exist in or portray in a virtual setting. The other would be happy with an untextured cube as long as it has the best stats and was capable of at least 10 ganks per hour. The former follows quest chains to see the outcome, the latter for the loot. The former discovers new areas, the latter gets maps off the internet. The former levels as a byproduct to the adventure, the latter buys power leveling guides...
There are far more of the second specie of MMO player then the first, primarily because MMOs are combat oriented treadmills - and as long as MMOs continue to be combat oriented treadmills, with no clearly defined goal beyond acquiring the best gear through 'time in seat', the RL market will continue to kill them by offering the ability to get those items quicker and with less effort.
Trying to break an argument down into its simplest form ... try this:
Im playing a game of chess...
I loose all my pieces and im about to be check mated...
I pay some guy $20 for a few more...
I continue on.
Thats what we are talking about when we consider the secondary market, you can cut it any way you like, you are cheating.
It was simple enough in primary school (ages 5-10), the teacher smacked you upside the head. People who invest time deserve the fruits of their labour.
E.g.
A father never spends any time with his children yet he expects them to repect him, so he gives them money to buy their love... Geez sounds a little hollow doesnt it.
had a friend that once built a boat. It took him a great deal of time and was all he thought about for as long as some of his friends could remember. He celebrated with all of his friends when he finished the project and took everyone out to see how great the ship performed. He was as proud of himself for the work he had done as for the ability to show it to others. We saw plenty of other boats that day on the lake and some were much more beautiful and clearly worth more money but this did not deter my friend from gleaming like a beacon as he knew it was the work and dedication he had put in that made his special and it did not matter how the others had gotten their boats....
The morale of the story is, that you should derive your since of accomplishment or joy from the work you put into achieving something. If you constantly judge it or yourself against others you will never be satisfied with the results.
i think this heart warming story doesnt hold true in a competitive game. i buy the game, i agree on the rule, i expect all players to ply by the same rule.
i would not play chess with someone that just pays 10bucks for a new pawn after i beat his figure
if your bored, visit my blog at: http://craylon.wordpress.com/ dealing with the look of mmos with the nvidia 3d vision glasses
had a friend that once built a boat. It took him a great deal of time and was all he thought about for as long as some of his friends could remember. He celebrated with all of his friends when he finished the project and took everyone out to see how great the ship performed. He was as proud of himself for the work he had done as for the ability to show it to others. We saw plenty of other boats that day on the lake and some were much more beautiful and clearly worth more money but this did not deter my friend from gleaming like a beacon as he knew it was the work and dedication he had put in that made his special and it did not matter how the others had gotten their boats....
That analogy is so inappropiate but not because mmorpgs are competitive (because I think that argument is a bit of a farce) but because building or buying a boat is not a game unlike a mmorpg. So the situations can not really be compared. I do see the point the guy is saying but again we're talking a completely different situation.
I think the real argument why people are against it is because they like their games 'pure', game-based mechanisms yielding game-based rewards, not out-of-game mechanisms yielding out-of-game rewards. (by the way perhaps hypocritically, I think buying characters is a different case)
lol, Anyone that has played an MMORPG based on RL Economy (i.e. Entropia Universe) knows that this system ruins game play for anyone that wants to play the game casually and doesnt mind maying the monthly fee. These players fall behind the "rich" and can never catch up. Inflation in game runs wild. This is what this topic boils down to. If someone can buy and sell any item in game it will strictly be turned into "Become the next Virtual Millionaire." The initial purpose of the game will be lost. Second life and Entropia Universe have already become this. Granted that was Second Life's purpose from the beginning IMO. But that is not the purpose of all games. Everything has a Vision Scope. "Becomming the next virtual Millionaire" is not the vision of most MMORPGs Secondary Markets should respect that. If there is a MMO that wants to involve itself with Secondary Markets then that is where they should focus their efforts.
If I play a game of monopoly with several other people, and I pay the banker in r.l. money to get the game money that I need to win the game, then I have cheated, and the game is forfeit.
Originally posted by redavni Brad is the obvious winner of this debate. It was fun to see the gold seller stoop to name-calling, and whining.
Honestly I don't care if people buy gold, just not on my server. Go do it on your own server where you can play with all the rest of the people who don't see the value in achievement.
Hmmm. I'm opposed to gold buying but I thought Brad lost the debate pretty handily.
Originally posted by ravex5 I am one who doesnt see how the secondary market hurts games. If the secondary market companies are doing things in a legitamate fasion and not exploiting or cheating I dont see any harm in it. If it really did hurt games then MMOs would all fail but they dont because the secondary market is there to help those who dont have the time to put towards getting something. The boat analogy is a very good one. Just because somebody buys a better boat than you built it doesnt take away the pride you have in what you worked towards. Its just many gamers are spoiled brats who would rather everyone have to do EXACTLY what they did to earn what they have but thats not how the world works. Brad says that it takes away the fun of those who earned the items, but on the other hand it adds to the fun of those who bought the stuff.
You're just the sort of person who shouldn't be in MMORPGS they are supposed to be immersive virtual worlds where you advance with the help of friends/guildmates and your own input. All you want to do is get everything easy mode and you don't care who you affect on the way. The secondary market IS bad and it is unfair on the people who play the game the way it was intended. Your's is a purely selfish view and alas all to typical of the new influx of people to this genre who want everything NOW without any effort on their part.
Judging by your comment i'd also guess that in single player games you use cheat codes, becuase you don't se why you should have to learn stragies for dealing with difficult encounters.
I applaud Brad for taking this stand and sincerely hope we see some law suites to put the second market paresites out of business for good.
Originally posted by alienpriest At last, a dual-sided debate with compelling arguments on both sides!
Really ? , i didn't find anything compelling about the gold sellers statements at all, he just sounded like someone trying to justify something he knew himself was wrong and keep his paycheck overinflated. It would be interesting to find out how much someone who provides a 'service' like this makes, you can bet its a sizeable amount.
Originally posted by PluddOne I've got an analogy that actually makes sense.
If I play a game of monopoly with several other people, and I pay the banker in r.l. money to get the game money that I need to win the game, then I have cheated, and the game is forfeit.
Not good enough. If you play monopoly, it's probably with your own friends, and there are, let's say, 6 more ppl beside you. So every action they do affects you directly and almost immediately so it undermines your fun of the game.
In a MMO, there're thousands of people at a given time, their actions (mostly) don't directly influnece you, and the indirect influence is divide by a substenial long in-game time that makes it unnoticeable for most players.
Anyway, I'm leaning towards free-market concept that's support the 2ndary market theme. If you can't play a game because some people advance faster than you - by purchasing stuff outside of the game - you need to check your own sensitivity. Yes, you can consider it cheating, but what's it to you? Nobody forces you to do it too. Enjoy the game in all the way YOU want to enjoy them.
But some ppl here gave strong arguments against RTM, one of them being - the RTM isn't bad on it own, but by its effects. One, can't remember who, said that if you aren't a powergamer or got a good wealth in RL - you'll be stuck when you try to advance you character, because in-game items would cost more as a result of RTM, and you don't have much free time (job, kids etc') to compensate with investement. Well, this can be true for the type of people that care about advancing, and getting uber all the time, but if you are such a gamer - why playing a game that you can't really be uber? This is a stupid decision from the bottom.
You should take the time to read the preceding posts, it might allow you to see past the nose on your face. Why do you choose to complicate the issue when it really is as simple as it appears? The players that decided the game was unfair should not be playing the game. That decision can be final.
This is one of the few issues where I agree with Brad.
Gold buying/selling hurts a lot of people, and the reasons are obvious and demonstrable.
Let's say there is a rare axe that sometimes drops in the game. I am a mage and am fortunate enough to get the axe and now I want to sell it. How much will I sell it for? I will sell it for the best price the market will bear. Here is where the problem comes in. If the "market" consists of gold that players have earned purely from playing the game, the time and energy they have into acquiring that gold makes them loathe to part with a large part of it. So in a world without gold buyers the best price on that axe may be 100 gold. But if players can get large amounts of gold easily just by charging their credit card, they don't have the same time and effort invested in their gold and they will pay 900 for the axe. If that is the price, now non-gold buyers cannot afford the axe.
But it gets worse. As players become frustrated that the price of quailty items is out of their reach, they decide to become gold buyers too. Which drives the price of the axe higher still because there are more people with cheap gold to spend. Now it's a 1000 gold axe. And so on the cycle continues.
Meanwhile, where is this gold coming from? It has to be farmed, which means you have professional gold farmers monopolizing game content, which has a further negative effect on the game.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
"Effect" summarized quite good what I think about the RMT issue as well. If a company and a part of the players ( including me ) of its game have problems with RMT coming up in their MMOG, it's primarily a matter of bad game design. Period.
I totally agree with McQuaid for the most part and instead of arguing if secondary market is a good or bad thing, how bout we make this even simpler. Play the damn game the way it was designed for? If the game allowed for the use of a secondary market use it, if not, find some other game that allowed it and let us who want to abide by the game rule play our game. By using a secondary market on a game that wasn't intended to have them in the first play, you not only breaking the user agreement, you also subjecting other player to a play style they didn't agree to in the first place. So once again, play by the rule or get the hell out.
Comments
Brad McQuaid is a creator of leveling simulators. I don't know if he gets it or not, but the things he (and almost everyone else) produces are depressing and beyond boring. RMT is a *logical* consequence of today's games design (and stunning amount of simply broken game mechanics, that noone bothers to fix). Unless of course everyone is braindead zoo monkey enjoying very, very simple things - in 99.99% fedex & spawnpoint camping for many months. Most people don't fall into that category. Also most people tend to automate repetitive and boring activities.
It's an incredible hipocrysy for McQuaid (or NCSoft, or ...) to say that their games are not designed for RMT, while in reality the design of almost every part of them smells of RMT and botting for 100 miles. That sadly, includes Vanguard as well.
Games like L2 would be long dead without RMT. Especially in Korea, where RMT *is* the reason to play the game. And L2 has been carefully designed to be RMT dependent. Not only that, it's been made more dependent on that with every update so far (note that I don't care about official BS called eula, roc, or whatever else - I look at game design and, in most cases completely broken, game mechanics).
A very nice summary of current mmorpgs: The noob comic strip 227
As long as McQuaid and others don't realise what terrible crap they are producing and pushing on market, nothing will change. If you want to see RMT gone, for once, produce something else than boring, buggy, repetitive, crappy, unfinished leveling simulator.
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DStuff
BS. There's NOTHING lost by the game company. Somebody paid the subscription fee while the item was being farmed. Suppose all the farmers stopped all at once. How much revenue would the game company LOSE because they were not there paying monthly fees?
If you buy a character, that character didn't automatically appear somehow. Someone played him up to where he is when you buy him.
"Life is too short to play nerfed characters."
If I create a painting, then some months later discover that it's being used in an add campaign by X company without my permission, or perhaps more importantly if it violates the terms of my copyright that company would lose in any US court should a case be brought to trial.
Sure, the designer spent "their own time and efforts" looking at my painting, and then finding a way to exploit it in their own work, but does that time invested equate to ownership ? Not in the least.
There are very strict laws in place to protect people's creations, no matter the format or medium. Look at what happened in the music industry in terms of 'sampling' other people's music in the late 80s / early 90s.
A third party who sells virtual items that were not their own creation, and were not given express written permission to do so A) has zero ownership of said items and is a thief who SHOULD be taken to court and
They know how to play and have enough people to fend of even the most dedicated guilds.
How can this be good for the player experience?
Currently Playing: GW2
Currently Following: Elder Scrolls Online
Games in my wake: Anarchy Online, Archlord (beta), Asherons Call, Asherons Call 2, City of Heroes, Dark Age of Camelot (SI to Catacombs), DDO, EVE Online, EverQuest II (beta), Guild Wars, Horizons, Lineage II,LORTO, Rift, RF Online (beta), RYL, Saga of Ryzon, Shadowbane, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard, WAR, WoW
So you are designing a game where you plan to sell me items - and want me to sign a EULA where you reserve the right to delete or modify the item I purchase whenever you feel like it.
Luckily for you there are plenty of stupid people around to play your game. I wont be one of them.
And you're one of them friend because you agree to those terms every single time you log into World of Warcraft, Everquest and practically every mmorpg out there aside from a few of the asian ones such as the Lineage franchise.
Future proof that absolutely nobody reads the EULA that you agree to every single time you log in :P
A. All title, ownership rights and intellectual property rights in and to the Game and all copies thereof (including without limitation any titles, computer code, themes, objects, characters, character names, stories, dialog, catch phrases, locations, concepts, artwork, character inventories, structural or landscape designs, animations, sounds, musical compositions and recordings, audio-visual effects, storylines, character likenesses, methods of operation, moral rights, and any related documentation) are owned or licensed by Blizzard. The Game is protected by the copyright laws of the United States, international treaties and conventions, and other laws. The Game may contain materials licensed by third parties, and the licensors of those materials may enforce their rights in the event of any violation of this License Agreement.
13. Changes to the Agreement. Blizzard reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to change, modify, add to, supplement or delete any of the terms and conditions of this License Agreement when Blizzard upgrades the Game Client, effective upon prior notice as follows: Blizzard will post notification of any such changes to this License Agreement on the World of Warcraft website and will post the revised version of this License Agreement in this location, and may provide such other notice as Blizzard may elect in its sole discretion. If any future changes to this License Agreement are unacceptable to you or cause you to no longer be in compliance with this License Agreement, you may terminate this License Agreement in accordance with Section 5 herein. Your installation and use of any updates or modifications to the Game or your continued use of the Game following notice of changes to this Agreement will demonstrate your acceptance of any and all such changes. Blizzard may change, modify, suspend, or discontinue any aspect of the Game at any time. Blizzard may also impose limits on certain features or restrict your access to parts or all of the Game without notice or liability. You have no interest, monetary or otherwise, in any feature or content contained in the Game.
You do realize that NONE of the above has been tried and tested in a court of law. You are assuming that clicking I agree binds you to this agreement when the fact of the matter is that WoW's agreement and pretty much every single one of them for every mmo on the market is in violation of several state and municipality laws throughout the United States, let alone the world in general. Also, you do realize that there are consumer protection laws that completely and utterly invalidate any EULA because they have you agreeing to set aside rights that by law you may not set aside. Just because its printed doesnt mean you should believe it, let alone because its filled with legalease worded in such a way to discourage the average gamer from researching exactly what rights they do have or dont.
For example in regards to your underlined part, which I assume you did because you are trying to make a point; In china recently laws were passed protecting those virtual items and the individuals that possess them. If you are in china, hack my account and steal my broadsword of uberness +20 you will be jailed. This in and of itself sets precedence that contrary to what blizzard wants you to believe, you do have ownership of your items.
The EULA is a binding contract, just the same as any terms of agreement. If it were illegal to include the statements made by Blizzard ( or other companies ) those statements would not be there in the first place. I can guarantee that a team of lawyers in fact came up with the exact wording on the quoted EULA.
And yea, sure that guy in China might face legal charges... because he hacked an account. If he went to a friend's house, logged onto his friend's account and vendored that sword or gave it to a friend there would be zero legal means of proving anything illegal had occured, only that the sword was sold or traded.
Sadly very turem so I do my bit by not buying.
Currently Playing: GW2
Currently Following: Elder Scrolls Online
Games in my wake: Anarchy Online, Archlord (beta), Asherons Call, Asherons Call 2, City of Heroes, Dark Age of Camelot (SI to Catacombs), DDO, EVE Online, EverQuest II (beta), Guild Wars, Horizons, Lineage II,LORTO, Rift, RF Online (beta), RYL, Saga of Ryzon, Shadowbane, Star Wars Galaxies, Vanguard, WAR, WoW
Can you imagine if it wasn't against the Eula and it was common practise for people to go to the secondary market. Everyone around you wearing items they had attained from a seller outside the game and not through game based mechanisms. Surely, that detracts from the game? What is the game about? Attaining items at the best price outside the game, or playing the game and attaining items?
There is a glaring flaw in the logic of the argument that, if you can afford to pay for in-game items, you should be able to "because it's your money." And the glaring flaw is this:
MMRPGs are a game, with rules. The entire concept of an RPG is character development and item gaining. This is done through grinding/exping. There are the rules - EULAs.. ALL games have rules, and those rules are there for a reason.
Anyone spouting this argument, by their own logic, should find the following scenarios perfectly alright:
You join an amateur volleyball league. But, you don't have enough time to play as you'd like, so you pay to have a professional play for you. Or, because you don't have enough time to play, you pay to have some device put on you that will improve your gameplay. Or maybe you pay to have an extra player on the court.
The problem with this is that the other members of your amateur volleyball league joined that league under certain assumptions. One of those assumptions was that other people who joined that league to play with them would be amateurs, and that they would play by the rules of that league. They don't care if you practice a lot, or if you don't, but they do care that the basic rules of the game are followed.
If a player in a baseball league can afford to pay for money to cork his bat so he can hit farther, is that alright? No. No for the simple reason that it's against the rules.
I agree with a earlier post, as long as there are buyers, there will be sellers. I myself have seen this kinda thing ruin certain aspects of a game. Take for instance crafted items, when i quit WoW the cost of reagents for a crafted item far exceded what you could sell the finished product for on the auction house, mainly due to the value of gold dropping hense higher prices. Not to mention there are far better items out there for cheaper ( im guessing for the most part farmed for gold to sell for RL money?) Anyway, in this instance I know it took from that aspect of the game and this is one of the only crafting systems I have experienced that is actually fun. Maybe it was just designed to be fun leveling up your trade and not after you have maxxed it /shrug...
This is kinda off the subject but I feel the same way about BOTS. Its a multiplayer game not a multi-account game.
Something else I'm seeing alot of nowadays is not only the selling of items, but PLing services.. jeez, whats next?
The RL market, in and of itself, is not evil - but the impact it has on the games is.
Any game with an economy stands to loose money, and therefore not be sucessful, as soon as the bots and shift-farmers show up. Bots and shift-farmers degrade the inherent value of the in-game financial structure by flooding it with money/items and making more of both available than was intended.
This does two things: Drive regular players away because if they don't stoop to gold buying they cannot compete on an even playing field, and it allows the players who do buy gold/items to reach the 'end game' much sooner so they get bored and quit sooner.
Both deprives the game of a subscription - the life-blood of an MMO.
Ultimately there are two kinds of MMO player in the world: One that researches the world, the races, the classes, and finds something they want to exist in or portray in a virtual setting. The other would be happy with an untextured cube as long as it has the best stats and was capable of at least 10 ganks per hour. The former follows quest chains to see the outcome, the latter for the loot. The former discovers new areas, the latter gets maps off the internet. The former levels as a byproduct to the adventure, the latter buys power leveling guides...
There are far more of the second specie of MMO player then the first, primarily because MMOs are combat oriented treadmills - and as long as MMOs continue to be combat oriented treadmills, with no clearly defined goal beyond acquiring the best gear through 'time in seat', the RL market will continue to kill them by offering the ability to get those items quicker and with less effort.
Trying to break an argument down into its simplest form ... try this:
Im playing a game of chess...
I loose all my pieces and im about to be check mated...
I pay some guy $20 for a few more...
I continue on.
Thats what we are talking about when we consider the secondary market, you can cut it any way you like, you are cheating.
It was simple enough in primary school (ages 5-10), the teacher smacked
you upside the head. People who invest time deserve the fruits of their
labour.
E.g.
A father never spends any time with his children yet he expects them to
repect him, so he gives them money to buy their love... Geez sounds a
little hollow doesnt it.
,
Oglem
Roger Kipe wrote:
had a friend that once built a boat. It took him a great deal of time and was all he thought about for as long as some of his friends could remember. He celebrated with all of his friends when he finished the project and took everyone out to see how great the ship performed. He was as proud of himself for the work he had done as for the ability to show it to others. We saw plenty of other boats that day on the lake and some were much more beautiful and clearly worth more money but this did not deter my friend from gleaming like a beacon as he knew it was the work and dedication he had put in that made his special and it did not matter how the others had gotten their boats....
The morale of the story is, that you should derive your since of accomplishment or joy from the work you put into achieving something. If you constantly judge it or yourself against others you will never be satisfied with the results.
i think this heart warming story doesnt hold true in a competitive game.
i buy the game, i agree on the rule, i expect all players to ply by the same rule.
i would not play chess with someone that just pays 10bucks for a new pawn after i beat his figure
if your bored, visit my blog at:
http://craylon.wordpress.com/ dealing with the look of mmos with the nvidia 3d vision glasses
That analogy is so inappropiate but not because mmorpgs are competitive (because I think that argument is a bit of a farce) but because building or buying a boat is not a game unlike a mmorpg. So the situations can not really be compared. I do see the point the guy is saying but again we're talking a completely different situation.
I think the real argument why people are against it is because they like their games 'pure', game-based mechanisms yielding game-based rewards, not out-of-game mechanisms yielding out-of-game rewards. (by the way perhaps hypocritically, I think buying characters is a different case)
http://erickveil.com/
lol, Anyone that has played an MMORPG based on RL Economy (i.e. Entropia Universe) knows that this system ruins game play for anyone that wants to play the game casually and doesnt mind maying the monthly fee. These players fall behind the "rich" and can never catch up. Inflation in game runs wild. This is what this topic boils down to. If someone can buy and sell any item in game it will strictly be turned into "Become the next Virtual Millionaire." The initial purpose of the game will be lost. Second life and Entropia Universe have already become this. Granted that was Second Life's purpose from the beginning IMO. But that is not the purpose of all games. Everything has a Vision Scope. "Becomming the next virtual Millionaire" is not the vision of most MMORPGs Secondary Markets should respect that. If there is a MMO that wants to involve itself with Secondary Markets then that is where they should focus their efforts.
I've got an analogy that actually makes sense.
If I play a game of monopoly with several other people, and I pay the banker in r.l. money to get the game money that I need to win the game, then I have cheated, and the game is forfeit.
Judging by your comment i'd also guess that in single player games you use cheat codes, becuase you don't se why you should have to learn stragies for dealing with difficult encounters.
I applaud Brad for taking this stand and sincerely hope we see some law suites to put the second market paresites out of business for good.
In a MMO, there're thousands of people at a given time, their actions (mostly) don't directly influnece you, and the indirect influence is divide by a substenial long in-game time that makes it unnoticeable for most players.
Anyway, I'm leaning towards free-market concept that's support the 2ndary market theme.
If you can't play a game because some people advance faster than you - by purchasing stuff outside of the game - you need to check your own sensitivity. Yes, you can consider it cheating, but what's it to you? Nobody forces you to do it too. Enjoy the game in all the way YOU want to enjoy them.
But some ppl here gave strong arguments against RTM, one of them being - the RTM isn't bad on it own, but by its effects.
One, can't remember who, said that if you aren't a powergamer or got a good wealth in RL - you'll be stuck when you try to advance you character, because in-game items would cost more as a result of RTM, and you don't have much free time (job, kids etc') to compensate with investement.
Well, this can be true for the type of people that care about advancing, and getting uber all the time, but if you are such a gamer - why playing a game that you can't really be uber? This is a stupid decision from the bottom.
You should take the time to read the preceding posts, it might allow you to see past the nose on your face. Why do you choose to complicate the issue when it really is as simple as it appears? The players that decided the game was unfair should not be playing the game. That decision can be final.
This is one of the few issues where I agree with Brad.
Gold buying/selling hurts a lot of people, and the reasons are obvious and demonstrable.
Let's say there is a rare axe that sometimes drops in the game. I am a mage and am fortunate enough to get the axe and now I want to sell it. How much will I sell it for? I will sell it for the best price the market will bear. Here is where the problem comes in. If the "market" consists of gold that players have earned purely from playing the game, the time and energy they have into acquiring that gold makes them loathe to part with a large part of it. So in a world without gold buyers the best price on that axe may be 100 gold. But if players can get large amounts of gold easily just by charging their credit card, they don't have the same time and effort invested in their gold and they will pay 900 for the axe. If that is the price, now non-gold buyers cannot afford the axe.
But it gets worse. As players become frustrated that the price of quailty items is out of their reach, they decide to become gold buyers too. Which drives the price of the axe higher still because there are more people with cheap gold to spend. Now it's a 1000 gold axe. And so on the cycle continues.
Meanwhile, where is this gold coming from? It has to be farmed, which means you have professional gold farmers monopolizing game content, which has a further negative effect on the game.
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