Well I was gonna start a new thread, but found this, not terribly ancient one via a search.. so decided to respond to this one instead :-p
Anyway...
I really... really... *really*.. hope that NCSoft is more present in dealing with RMT in Aion.
Saying that the gameplay, gear or whatever in the game isn't conducive to gold-farming is a cop-out response to me. It helps, to be sure. But it doesn't address the problem nearly enough.
Making key elements of a game more accessible to the players does help to reduce the perceived "need" to buy money or items or leveling... However, I don't care *how* easy it is achieve or acquire anything in a MMO, there are always going to be people for whom it's not "easy enough" and they're going to always go the route of simply buying/cheating their way through.
Making players agree to an EULA that you don't enforce is laughable. The RMT companies wipe their collective ass with those.
In my very strong opinion, *any* competent MMO developer nowadays needs to have a present and active stance against RMT in their game, if they have one at all. There are no excuses. There are no work-arounds.
People bring up FFXI as an example... Having played the game since its NA PC launch, I've seen the economy go from "a bit steep" before the RMT outbreak, to absurd by even L2 standards during the RMT outbreak, to where it is now, which is the most under control and lowest I've ever seen it in my time playing.
When I first started playing, a Jujitsu Gi (level 40 body piece) went for about 450k on my server (Pandemonium). During the RMT outbreak, that price went well over 2 million for a time. Since SE started combatting it, I've seen the Gi's as low as 50k now. That is *awesome*... especially for a piece of gear as good as the Gi is for that level range.
And that's a mild example. There are items whose prices shot up 10x or more at their worst and have since come down to be lower than they ever were.
The point is, SE took it seriously. They didn't relegate RMT control to GMs who had myriad other issues to deal with.
Rather, they created an entire separate team - their Task Force - who does nothing but tracks RMT activity, bans accounts and works to implement new methods of dealing with them.
They're also very communicative with their player base about these efforts. Every month they release a report of how many accounts were banned, a break-down of what the bannings were for and how much ill-gotten gil was removed from the economy.
They also release a separate report of what they've been focusing on, what they're looking into, where they've seen improvement, where improvement is needed, and so forth.
*That* is how you deal with RMT... and the results, in FFXI, speak for themself.
To be sure, there is still RMT activity in FFXI and always will be. So long as there are lazy players who want everything handed to them and don't want to actually *play* the game, there always will be. But it is not *nearly* the issue it was, and could still be had they taken the Lineage 2 route and just let it run rampant to the point where the L2 playerbase actually relies on farmers to help keep the prices down.
Lineage 2 is the first and only MMO I've ever played where players will actually refer to bot bannings as "screwing over the players" because of how costs go up due to players now having to obtain mats and such through their own effort.
And I also agree... responding to L2's bot problems by saying "well all MMOs have bots" is to completely mischaracterize just how bad it really is in that game. RMT in L2 is in a league all its own.
So yes...
Aion looks like it has the potential to become NCSoft's new flagship game. Especially since L2 seems to be losing steam and Lineage 3 is still years off. Despite their efforts to make L2 a more approachable game, it's too little too late, I think. They didn't take it seriously enough, soon enough.
Let's hope NCSoft has learned from L2... takes a look at how seriously other companies are taking RMT and botting - such as Square-Enix and Blizzard - and actually *does* somethign about it this time; that they don't sit back and let it proliferate right under their noses, responding with mere token bannings every few months.
It's easy to say you care about RMT and its effect on your game and its population. Talk is cheap.
It's something else entirely to consistently prove you care about it, by actually doing something to combat it.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Besides of NCSoft actions/no actions against bots in Lineage II, that can be argued. Lineage II is the heaven of farmers just for three reasons.
First reason : all is tradable there (no boe and so..)
Second reason: any item needs a great effort (in time of gameplay) to be adquired. Same for the leveling process.
Third reason: equipment is very important for the performance of your toons and Lineage 2 is a very competitive game.
All of them have to do with building the demand (don't forget that are players who buy the in-game currency or items or power level for real money)
Farmers just go there to satisfy the demand and make its business.
As i said in other thread in Darkfall forums, if there is enough bussines and profits available, software and surveillance can help, but it is not going to stop farmers. It's a similar fight that against hackers with a lot of money involved.
I can't agree about game design has nothing to do with bots and farmers. Just as an example of the opposite to L2, the main tool that Blizzard uses against the problem is bind on pickup and bind on equip. These reduce a lot the demand an makes the other tools more effective because, specially surveillance have to deal with a lot less transactions.
Besides of NCSoft actions/no actions against bots in Lineage II, that can be argued. Lineage II is the heaven of farmers just for three reasons. First reason : all is tradable there (no boe and so..) Second reason: any item needs a great effort (in time of gameplay) to be adquired. Same for the leveling process. Third reason: equipment is very important for the performance of your toons and Lineage 2 is a very competitive game. All of them have to do with building the demand (don't forget that are players who buy the in-game currency or items or power level for real money) Farmers just go there to satisfy the demand and make its business. As i said in other thread in Darkfall forums, if there is enough bussines and profits available, software and surveillance can help, but it is not going to stop farmers. It's a similar fight that against hackers with a lot of money involved. I can't agree about game design has nothing to do with bots and farmers. Just as an example of the opposite to L2, the main tool that Blizzard uses against the problem is bind on pickup and bind on equip. These reduce a lot the demand an makes the other tools more effective because, specially surveillance have to deal with a lot less transactions.
Not sure if any part of that was in reference to my statement that saying the game design and such isn't conducive to RMT isn't a good answer or not...
If it was, then allow me to further explain what I mean...
I don't care what game it's been, what type of game system or anything... any time it's been said that the game's design alone was enough to mitigate RMT, they were proven wrong.
The people in these RMT companies consistently display an uncanny ability to very quickly identify and move in on the most profitable areas of any MMO's economy pretty much out of the gate.
One RMT site I looked had gold available by the thousands within the first week of WAR's release, for example. And there were people on that game's forum who insisted that wouldn't happen with WAR because its design made it difficult or at least not profitable. Once again, the RMT companies proved them wrong.
No design is fool proof when there's a demand for the money and the means to obtain it. These people will always find a way around it.
Certain considerations can be made to decrease the ease by which the money can be earned (SE actually changed or added things with FFXI to this end). However, believing that the game's design will significantly mitigate RMT activity by itself is naive at best. It has yet to happen in any MMO I'm aware of with an RMT presence.
There still has to be active hands-on involvement in combatting it as well.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
At some extend, yes my post was in reference to your comments.
I have to agree with you that game design is not enough to stop RTM activities. An active attitude need to be assumed by game companies using all means they can have (Legal, protection software, watching in game and so...)
May be I'm so naive
But what i wanted to say its that some key elements of the game design make the potential business in a game bigger or smaller. Talking in terms of general market some definitions will push up the demand while other different setup will be generating a lot less demand. As it happens in any market around if the demand is high the opportunities for making money are high and the effort the potential offerers will put on it to get the profits will be a lot bigger (invest money to develop bot programs, buying accounts, and so ).
The other tools are trying to control the offer, but at the end as history as proved a lot of times trying to stop the offer when there is a high and profitable demand, its useless. Take the "Dry Law" as stereotype of it.
Put on the extreme situation if there is nothing to be trade, there is no market, no farmers and bots. Lineage 2 is the other extreme. But because trading is an element of any MMORP there will be always gold farmers and power-levelers in any game. The game design just will dimension how big these activities are and furthermore the impact on the game play.
Of course as i said at the beginning actions to control the offer will help a lot and take in consideration that the smallest the activity is the easier is to control it.
At some extend, yes my post was in reference to your comments. I have to agree with you that game design is not enough to stop RTM activities. An active attitude need to be assumed by game companies using all means they can have (Legal, protection software, watching in game and so...) May be I'm so naive But what i wanted to say its that some key elements of the game design make the potential business in a game bigger or smaller. Talking in terms of general market some definitions will push up the demand while other different setup will be generating a lot less demand. As it happens in any market around if the demand is high the opportunities for making money are high and the effort the potential offerers will put on it to get the profits will be a lot bigger (invest money to develop bot programs, buying accounts, and so ). The other tools are trying to control the offer, but at the end as history as proved a lot of times trying to stop the offer when there is a high and profitable demand, its useless. Take the "Dry Law" as stereotype of it. Put on the extreme situation if there is nothing to be trade, there is no market, no farmers and bots. Lineage 2 is the other extreme. But because trading is an element of any MMORP there will be always gold farmers and power-levelers in any game. The game design just will dimension how big these activities are and furthermore the impact on the game play. Of course as i said at the beginning actions to control the offer will help a lot and take in consideration that the smallest the activity is the easier is to control it.
Fair enough... L2 does cater wonderfully to botting. No argument there. I've noted in a thread on the L2 forums here that there are things they should have changed, a while ago, to make the game less punishing on legit players. This way they actually would have the ability to play the game *and* do things like obtain enough mats for crafted gear, etc.
I don't think players are entirely against a grind - hell, they wouldn't have played L2 *at all* for these past years if that were the case. But there are limits and I think L2 definitely blows past them in several ways.
I mean, when the leveling has been (at least 'til recently) a slow grind from day 1, and the grind to get enough mats to craft good gear is slow... and the grind to get money is slow.. .and so forth.. it's too much.
Something's gotta give.. and it did. People seemed to embrace the slow leveling grind. They accepted the difficulties of the economy, though to a lesser degree (thus all the adena buying).
But one thing many players by and large haven't accepted, much less embraced - I'd say the majority of them from my experiences - is having to grind for mats simply to try to craft an item that - unless it's a 100% rec, could end up failing. They were quite content to let someone else do that for them... and there was a perfect opportunity for the RMT to cash in on.
Looks like NC's now looking to finally combat that with their recent changes... Though I can't help but wonder why they waited so long. I guess when you're having to merge 6 servers down 3... it's something of a wake-up call.
I guess you could add a "Lineage 2 notwithstanding" to the whole of my posts. Even though Lineage 2 shines brilliantly as an example of what "going too far with grind" looks like, I feel my points would still stand, even without L2 in the picture.
Basically, it has to be at least a 2-pronged process.
And by the way... You're not naive, imo, because you acknowledge that relying on the game's design alone isn't enough to combat the problem . You'd be naive if you thought it was .
In the end... there will be RMT in Aion. Guaranteed. Doesn't matter what they do to try and curb it.. It's going to be there. The important thing is that they actually make an active effort to minimalize it as much as possible.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Comments
Well I was gonna start a new thread, but found this, not terribly ancient one via a search.. so decided to respond to this one instead :-p
Anyway...
I really... really... *really*.. hope that NCSoft is more present in dealing with RMT in Aion.
Saying that the gameplay, gear or whatever in the game isn't conducive to gold-farming is a cop-out response to me. It helps, to be sure. But it doesn't address the problem nearly enough.
Making key elements of a game more accessible to the players does help to reduce the perceived "need" to buy money or items or leveling... However, I don't care *how* easy it is achieve or acquire anything in a MMO, there are always going to be people for whom it's not "easy enough" and they're going to always go the route of simply buying/cheating their way through.
Making players agree to an EULA that you don't enforce is laughable. The RMT companies wipe their collective ass with those.
In my very strong opinion, *any* competent MMO developer nowadays needs to have a present and active stance against RMT in their game, if they have one at all. There are no excuses. There are no work-arounds.
People bring up FFXI as an example... Having played the game since its NA PC launch, I've seen the economy go from "a bit steep" before the RMT outbreak, to absurd by even L2 standards during the RMT outbreak, to where it is now, which is the most under control and lowest I've ever seen it in my time playing.
When I first started playing, a Jujitsu Gi (level 40 body piece) went for about 450k on my server (Pandemonium). During the RMT outbreak, that price went well over 2 million for a time. Since SE started combatting it, I've seen the Gi's as low as 50k now. That is *awesome*... especially for a piece of gear as good as the Gi is for that level range.
And that's a mild example. There are items whose prices shot up 10x or more at their worst and have since come down to be lower than they ever were.
The point is, SE took it seriously. They didn't relegate RMT control to GMs who had myriad other issues to deal with.
Rather, they created an entire separate team - their Task Force - who does nothing but tracks RMT activity, bans accounts and works to implement new methods of dealing with them.
They're also very communicative with their player base about these efforts. Every month they release a report of how many accounts were banned, a break-down of what the bannings were for and how much ill-gotten gil was removed from the economy.
They also release a separate report of what they've been focusing on, what they're looking into, where they've seen improvement, where improvement is needed, and so forth.
*That* is how you deal with RMT... and the results, in FFXI, speak for themself.
To be sure, there is still RMT activity in FFXI and always will be. So long as there are lazy players who want everything handed to them and don't want to actually *play* the game, there always will be. But it is not *nearly* the issue it was, and could still be had they taken the Lineage 2 route and just let it run rampant to the point where the L2 playerbase actually relies on farmers to help keep the prices down.
Lineage 2 is the first and only MMO I've ever played where players will actually refer to bot bannings as "screwing over the players" because of how costs go up due to players now having to obtain mats and such through their own effort.
And I also agree... responding to L2's bot problems by saying "well all MMOs have bots" is to completely mischaracterize just how bad it really is in that game. RMT in L2 is in a league all its own.
So yes...
Aion looks like it has the potential to become NCSoft's new flagship game. Especially since L2 seems to be losing steam and Lineage 3 is still years off. Despite their efforts to make L2 a more approachable game, it's too little too late, I think. They didn't take it seriously enough, soon enough.
Let's hope NCSoft has learned from L2... takes a look at how seriously other companies are taking RMT and botting - such as Square-Enix and Blizzard - and actually *does* somethign about it this time; that they don't sit back and let it proliferate right under their noses, responding with mere token bannings every few months.
It's easy to say you care about RMT and its effect on your game and its population. Talk is cheap.
It's something else entirely to consistently prove you care about it, by actually doing something to combat it.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Besides of NCSoft actions/no actions against bots in Lineage II, that can be argued. Lineage II is the heaven of farmers just for three reasons.
First reason : all is tradable there (no boe and so..)
Second reason: any item needs a great effort (in time of gameplay) to be adquired. Same for the leveling process.
Third reason: equipment is very important for the performance of your toons and Lineage 2 is a very competitive game.
All of them have to do with building the demand (don't forget that are players who buy the in-game currency or items or power level for real money)
Farmers just go there to satisfy the demand and make its business.
As i said in other thread in Darkfall forums, if there is enough bussines and profits available, software and surveillance can help, but it is not going to stop farmers. It's a similar fight that against hackers with a lot of money involved.
I can't agree about game design has nothing to do with bots and farmers. Just as an example of the opposite to L2, the main tool that Blizzard uses against the problem is bind on pickup and bind on equip. These reduce a lot the demand an makes the other tools more effective because, specially surveillance have to deal with a lot less transactions.
Not sure if any part of that was in reference to my statement that saying the game design and such isn't conducive to RMT isn't a good answer or not...
If it was, then allow me to further explain what I mean...
I don't care what game it's been, what type of game system or anything... any time it's been said that the game's design alone was enough to mitigate RMT, they were proven wrong.
The people in these RMT companies consistently display an uncanny ability to very quickly identify and move in on the most profitable areas of any MMO's economy pretty much out of the gate.
One RMT site I looked had gold available by the thousands within the first week of WAR's release, for example. And there were people on that game's forum who insisted that wouldn't happen with WAR because its design made it difficult or at least not profitable. Once again, the RMT companies proved them wrong.
No design is fool proof when there's a demand for the money and the means to obtain it. These people will always find a way around it.
Certain considerations can be made to decrease the ease by which the money can be earned (SE actually changed or added things with FFXI to this end). However, believing that the game's design will significantly mitigate RMT activity by itself is naive at best. It has yet to happen in any MMO I'm aware of with an RMT presence.
There still has to be active hands-on involvement in combatting it as well.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
At some extend, yes my post was in reference to your comments.
I have to agree with you that game design is not enough to stop RTM activities. An active attitude need to be assumed by game companies using all means they can have (Legal, protection software, watching in game and so...)
May be I'm so naive
But what i wanted to say its that some key elements of the game design make the potential business in a game bigger or smaller. Talking in terms of general market some definitions will push up the demand while other different setup will be generating a lot less demand. As it happens in any market around if the demand is high the opportunities for making money are high and the effort the potential offerers will put on it to get the profits will be a lot bigger (invest money to develop bot programs, buying accounts, and so ).
The other tools are trying to control the offer, but at the end as history as proved a lot of times trying to stop the offer when there is a high and profitable demand, its useless. Take the "Dry Law" as stereotype of it.
Put on the extreme situation if there is nothing to be trade, there is no market, no farmers and bots. Lineage 2 is the other extreme. But because trading is an element of any MMORP there will be always gold farmers and power-levelers in any game. The game design just will dimension how big these activities are and furthermore the impact on the game play.
Of course as i said at the beginning actions to control the offer will help a lot and take in consideration that the smallest the activity is the easier is to control it.
Fair enough... L2 does cater wonderfully to botting. No argument there. I've noted in a thread on the L2 forums here that there are things they should have changed, a while ago, to make the game less punishing on legit players. This way they actually would have the ability to play the game *and* do things like obtain enough mats for crafted gear, etc.
I don't think players are entirely against a grind - hell, they wouldn't have played L2 *at all* for these past years if that were the case. But there are limits and I think L2 definitely blows past them in several ways.
I mean, when the leveling has been (at least 'til recently) a slow grind from day 1, and the grind to get enough mats to craft good gear is slow... and the grind to get money is slow.. .and so forth.. it's too much.
Something's gotta give.. and it did. People seemed to embrace the slow leveling grind. They accepted the difficulties of the economy, though to a lesser degree (thus all the adena buying).
But one thing many players by and large haven't accepted, much less embraced - I'd say the majority of them from my experiences - is having to grind for mats simply to try to craft an item that - unless it's a 100% rec, could end up failing. They were quite content to let someone else do that for them... and there was a perfect opportunity for the RMT to cash in on.
Looks like NC's now looking to finally combat that with their recent changes... Though I can't help but wonder why they waited so long. I guess when you're having to merge 6 servers down 3... it's something of a wake-up call.
I guess you could add a "Lineage 2 notwithstanding" to the whole of my posts. Even though Lineage 2 shines brilliantly as an example of what "going too far with grind" looks like, I feel my points would still stand, even without L2 in the picture.
Basically, it has to be at least a 2-pronged process.
And by the way... You're not naive, imo, because you acknowledge that relying on the game's design alone isn't enough to combat the problem . You'd be naive if you thought it was
.
In the end... there will be RMT in Aion. Guaranteed. Doesn't matter what they do to try and curb it.. It's going to be there. The important thing is that they actually make an active effort to minimalize it as much as possible.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops