So far has any game succeeded in completely doing away with RMT ?
You're right about that but nothing in this world is ever going to stop players from looking for an easy way out that involves them paying money. Next to prostitution the oldest profession is probably an 'enabler'. I doubt there will ever come a time that we can do away with RMT completely. I also hope that game companies can come up with even better ways but as the joke said "what are 1000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean"...... a good start.
Someone pls tell them that trading im stuff gets your sales up by 45% Not doing that lowers your IQ by 60 point's But that no real problem, since in a little while after release it will be f2p with tradable im stuff (Do you wanna make a bet we me on that DM ?
When I first read about the wide-ranging trading restrictions in BDO, I wasn't really surprised. It was an inevitable consequence of the massive RMT industry.
If these measures are successful, I expect they will be expanded and find their way into many new MMO's. RIP MMO "economies" as we knew them, everything will be locked-down and regulated, with devs setting AH prices, etc.
The goldsellers will be left with only selling levelled accounts, unless they can expand their services (which they most likely will do). There's nothing a game developer can do to stop players from helping each other in MMO's in exchange for RL payments...
They cannot stop idiot gamers that visit RMT sites so the collateral damage you talk about is actually the result of gullible players who cannot understand what no trading in game means.
But that is pretty much only thing that matters - the "gulliable" players.
The "true" RMT is not much of an issue, it is the one that involve criminal activites that is a problem and that cannot be stopped by even complete removal of trade option - being case of Skyforge.
There is one lesson to be learned - demand for RMT means you are missing something in your business. Improve your monetization, provide more stuff in cash shop and ways how to exchange real life money for the virtual ones.
That way there is less incentives to go to 3rd party, and you make some profit by doing so as well. Everyone is happy.
I disagree that the only negative impact of gold sellers is account theft. That is one damaging aspect of RMT, and even that is reduced by this kind of system simply because there is going to be less gold sellers, less gs spam, and more players aware that the only thing going to a gold seller will achieve is getting your account or credit card information stolen.
One other related thing BDO NA/EU has done, the ramifications of which I think have not been adequately acknowledged, is not allowing cash shop items to be sold on the AH. This is a huge change from the f2p models in other areas; it basically has chopped out one of the major avenues for whales to "p2w".
I find it a little sad that people are very focused on prices of some items and some really quite minor stats on costumes, but have just ignored this vital change.
BDO's removal of P2P trading should be considered an atrocity level crime for the MMORPG world. Akin to Stalin's reign of terror over Ukraine.
Instead of taking a few minutes to implement an SIEM like system to monitor and react to abnormal gold and/or related transactions, they decided to cut out possibly one of the most rewarding aspects of actually playing online with people and being able to help friends out with excess gear/money.
It's decisions like these that are detrimental to building a closely knit social community of actively wanting to help one another out. It is appalling to me that such a concept even got past the first round of development. Had I been at the table when it was suggested, I would have personally loaded the suggester and his family into a cannon, and fired him across the DMZ into one of North Korea's generational prisons.
BDO's removal of P2P trading should be considered an atrocity level crime for the MMORPG world. Akin to Stalin's reign of terror over Ukraine.
Instead of taking a few minutes to implement an SIEM like system to monitor and react to abnormal gold and/or related transactions, they decided to cut out possibly one of the most rewarding aspects of actually playing online with people and being able to help friends out with excess gear/money.
It's decisions like these that are detrimental to building a closely knit social community of actively wanting to help one another out. It is appalling to me that such a concept even got past the first round of development. Had I been at the table when it was suggested, I would have personally loaded the suggester and his family into a cannon, and fired him across the DMZ into one of North Korea's generational prisons.
There are other ways to help people than by twinking them with mats and goods. For example, you could go out while they farm nodes and help them kill mobs and be there if pvp happens. You could let your mob drop item timers expire so they get your drops.
It takes a certain kind of game out of the game, but there are other things to do and incentives to build a supportive community.
So you suggest it should be up to players to look for inferior game play workarounds to circumvent poor design...?
BDO's removal of P2P trading should be considered an atrocity level crime for the MMORPG world. Akin to Stalin's reign of terror over Ukraine.
Instead of taking a few minutes to implement an SIEM like system to monitor and react to abnormal gold and/or related transactions, they decided to cut out possibly one of the most rewarding aspects of actually playing online with people and being able to help friends out with excess gear/money.
It's decisions like these that are detrimental to building a closely knit social community of actively wanting to help one another out. It is appalling to me that such a concept even got past the first round of development. Had I been at the table when it was suggested, I would have personally loaded the suggester and his family into a cannon, and fired him across the DMZ into one of North Korea's generational prisons.
There are other ways to help people than by twinking them with mats and goods. For example, you could go out while they farm nodes and help them kill mobs and be there if pvp happens. You could let your mob drop item timers expire so they get your drops.
It takes a certain kind of game out of the game, but there are other things to do and incentives to build a supportive community.
That's a LOT more time-consuming. Which has its pros and cons. However, you could do that even in a game with trading too, so you had more options to help others there.
Did I say that? No, you said that. I don't think it's an inferior workaround or poor design.
It's not a solution for every game, but it can work. I've seen it dramatically reduce gold spam/rmt in Skyforge to be virtually non-existent.
It's not a perfect solution. There is no all encompassing solution. Some problems take a layered approach to the solution. It's similar to network security in that respect. No one thing secures a network. Many things minimize and reduce the potential and scope of the problem.
If players cannot fullfill their elementary needs to help their friends because such mechanics were intentionally removed or limited, it cannot be considered anything but poor design - the fact that they did loose restrictions in western version reinforce the proposition.
And since you are still defending such design, the possible reaction/solution to the issue is:
1) Players should move on. 2) Players should look for workarounds.
Considering former would be truly dumb to imply, I assume you are implying the latter.
Did I say that? No, you said that. I don't think it's an inferior workaround or poor design.
It's not a solution for every game, but it can work. I've seen it dramatically reduce gold spam/rmt in Skyforge to be virtually non-existent.
It's not a perfect solution. There is no all encompassing solution. Some problems take a layered approach to the solution. It's similar to network security in that respect. No one thing secures a network. Many things minimize and reduce the potential and scope of the problem.
If players cannot fullfill their elementary needs to help their friends because such mechanics were intentionally removed or limited, it cannot be considered anything but poor design - the fact that they did loose restrictions in western version reinforce the proposition.
And since you are still defending such design, the possible reaction/solution to the issue is:
1) Players should move on. 2) Players should look for workarounds.
Considering former would be truly dumb to imply, I assume you are implying the latter.
Am I missing something?
Since when is being able to twink another toon an 'elementary need'? Also why can't it be considered as being anything but poor design? Sorry but your arguments are paper thin and seem to be focusing only on how something that probably only reduces the impact of wallet warriors and RMT'ers ability to buy/sell gold etc. Will affect ordinary players? Might it not also be said that there is also the possible corollary of increased social interraction/reliance? Wallet warriors can still use the cash shop of course, but, they may have to work for their gold for a change. RMT'ers can cry in their beers, realistically, i don't think many will feel that much sympathy towards them anyway. However i can think of a good reason why both Wallet Warriors and RMT'ers might be concerned about this kind of a thing, success often breeds proliferation, be interesting to see if thats the case.
I really do hope it stops goldselling. Blade and Soul is currently in the process of being completely ruined by hacking bots which gather gold to sell. The worst part is they introduced meaningful rewards to Arena (the best part of the game), and now it's full of hacking bots. Not sure what NcSoft is going to do, if anything, but if they don't/can't do anything, the game is really going to crash and burn.
Might be the smartest thing ever to take multiple measures like Daum is taking with Black Desert to prevent it from ever starting up. Hopefully if nothing else it will just be too difficult for goldsellers to bother with.
Since when is being able to twink another toon an 'elementary need'?
...since it is a common, must-have feature and loose of the restrictions implies that developers do acknowledge this need.
Can't be clearer than that but hey, enjoy your ride on bandwagon of silly ranting.
Don't confuse something that you feel is necessary, is also necessary to others, nor also, a good thing.
But, just to clear things up a little; Twinking Won't; improve your standing with other players make people like you more make the opposite sex more attracted to you! make the game more challenging increase your enjoyment of a game, except on a very frivolous level
Twinking Will; Make the game less challenging often alienate the twinkee from other players increase the players level of entitlement! give you bingo wings! (okay not really!) reduce your standing with other players.
all joking aside however, there is really not much to be gained by twinking, and much to be lost either through less challenging gameplay and subsequently, getting easily bored because its less challenging, to actually reducing your gaining actual skill in playing because you were never pushed into making that much effort.
Like the saying goes,' whatever you do, don't be 'you lite'
People will be "twinking" their own alts, I think, since gear is shared account wide and there is no level requirement. That's what I saw in the vids anyway.
Don't confuse something that you feel is necessary, is also necessary to others, nor also, a good thing.
Probably you could actually followed your own advice and stop trying try to pretend that the only use of trading is twinking, something you have your personal dislike for. It makes very poor straw man argument.
BDO's removal of P2P trading should be considered an atrocity level crime for the MMORPG world. Akin to Stalin's reign of terror over Ukraine.
Instead of taking a few minutes to implement an SIEM like system to monitor and react to abnormal gold and/or related transactions, they decided to cut out possibly one of the most rewarding aspects of actually playing online with people and being able to help friends out with excess gear/money.
It's decisions like these that are detrimental to building a closely knit social community of actively wanting to help one another out. It is appalling to me that such a concept even got past the first round of development. Had I been at the table when it was suggested, I would have personally loaded the suggester and his family into a cannon, and fired him across the DMZ into one of North Korea's generational prisons.
Again, RMT isn't a problem itself, it is the illegal/criminal activities that are attached to it thus making whole measure even sillier - you are hitting smaller nail with even larger hammer.
"Fixing" issues with large sweep decisions is rarely good approach.
BDO's removal of P2P trading should be considered an atrocity level crime for the MMORPG world. Akin to Stalin's reign of terror over Ukraine.
Instead of taking a few minutes to implement an SIEM like system to monitor and react to abnormal gold and/or related transactions, they decided to cut out possibly one of the most rewarding aspects of actually playing online with people and being able to help friends out with excess gear/money.
It's decisions like these that are detrimental to building a closely knit social community of actively wanting to help one another out. It is appalling to me that such a concept even got past the first round of development. Had I been at the table when it was suggested, I would have personally loaded the suggester and his family into a cannon, and fired him across the DMZ into one of North Korea's generational prisons.
Again, RMT isn't a problem itself, it is the illegal/criminal activities that are attached to it thus making whole measure even sillier - you are hitting smaller nail with even larger hammer.
"Fixing" issues with large sweep decisions is rarely good approach.
Sorry, RMT isn't a problem itself.... i think 99.9% of the gaming industry might take issue with that statement. It affects in game economies in a hugely negative way, which can influence player retention rates negatively. It usually involves hacking players accounts to obtain the gold/items that are being traded, which also, can influence player retention rates negatively. It usually involves botting+spawn/resource camping that oddly enough, also affects player retention rates negatively. If there is some positive aspect to RMT i am not aware of it.
Are you honestly surprised that developers are actively trying to prevent RMT in their games? sometimes the positives radically outweight the negatives, and RMT is a big problem, because it affects the games bottom line, retaining paying players.
Don't confuse something that you feel is necessary, is also necessary to others, nor also, a good thing.
Probably you could actually followed your own advice and stop trying try to pretend that the only use of trading is twinking, something you have your personal dislike for. It makes very poor straw man argument.
Also there is trading. It's just controlled and anonymous. If you get a good drop you can put that on the AH and make money from it. You just can't trade directly. Others will be able to buy that from you and get what they want. There will be twinking and trading, just not in the traditional player to player style.
What advantage does direct trading offer, over the controlled AH, that outweighs the benefit of dramatically reduced or eliminated RMT?
I think you hit on an important point here. Some people have said that BDO is a single player/ casual/ solo centric game because there is no interdependence between players due to the p2p trade restrictions.
However, similarly to other mmos, it would be very difficult (and inefficient) for one player to master all aspects of crafting/farming/horse breeding etc. so players will have to rely on each other for certain materials and goods that they can't make.
The only difference is that instead of being able to exchange goods informally it has to be done via the AH. Actually, this is the way trade is done a lot of the time in many other mmos as well, except BDO takes it one step further by regulating the market to make it more transparent and safer to trade in.
Combined with the NA/EU version's rule that cash shop items cannot be traded on the AH, this system not only makes it very hard for gold spammers, but also virtually eliminates the ability to "p2w". It pretty much ensures that everyone will actually have to play the game to build up power, with no recourse to use cash either through the cash shop or gold sellers to greatly boost power, or being gifted power by friends /guildies.
People will actually have to play the game to achieve anything. Pretty hardcore right?
There was still RMT spam but the offer where shady or to buy their account. If you are that stupid to fall for such things, you deserve on losing your money.
Realistically from my personal point of view, I am barely using the trade feature while playing any mmo. The only exception was in archeage because I was a carpenter and made furniture and beds to guildmates but I've never traded with random people.
The solution looks like solving a flea problem by burning your pets. No more fleas. Player trading is a necessity in most games of that gind level (upper grinding levels, if not absoule grinding top). This is not a solution, this is pretending that the problem does not exist.
No fate but what we make, so make me a ham sandwich please.
No goldseller spam = godsend. Didn't even try and play BnS because of them. Every chat was flooded, block list severely limited. Thx, was nice for few days, moving on.
Anyway, people are so upset by what BDO does, and I have a suspicion a few people that argue that it's crap, didn't even try the game properly. You can still help people if you like. With the item max price you can transfer money (if there's not a ton of max price of certain items heh). Or you can be a socialist and do it through the guild pay.
You can twink your alts however the hell you like. Idk what you gonna do with twinks in BDO, but ok, pimp your level 1 toon with +15 armors, no prob, you'll demolish dem beetles and imps :proud: .
Anyway, at the end, the game is about grind. And grind is what you'll do in one way or another. Either level grind, money grind, item grind. If you cant force your way with the wallet, omg, end of world. Oh, you can't totally manipulate AH (you can, but it's limited) to earn fucktons of gold, omg, end of world. People, we're never happy.
there is no interdependence between players due to the p2p trade restrictions.
You mistake cause for consequence there.
Interdependence, or the lack of, does not come with trading options but it is based purely on design level - usually locking out crafting skills, making you pick a "crafting class"(which is circumvented through alts) or complexity of the crafting system.
In BDO there is no such restriction in place - there are no crafting class/skills resrictions, nor there is required complexity in economy and crafting system.
Similarly to other MMOs, it is actual P2P trading that encourage co-operation and reinforce grouping/guild social mechanisms.
Inability to give any materials or gear to your friend is beyond stupid level of game design.
Anyway, imho Daum may percieve it as: Since we made sure you can craft everything yourself, we want to you to engage in all crafting fields, thus we do not see trading fitting our game.
But I highly doubt this approach will work in west...
So what is the solution ? its a fact that gold sellers kill economies in game and cause AH prices to yoyo. I see no other way to stop this rot other than take away the tools to allow them to use this and that means player to player trading and controlling the AH. Its pretty sad that this has to be done but if it stops them from ruining the game then so be it.
Comments
You're right about that but nothing in this world is ever going to stop players from looking for an easy way out that involves them paying money. Next to prostitution the oldest profession is probably an 'enabler'. I doubt there will ever come a time that we can do away with RMT completely. I also hope that game companies can come up with even better ways but as the joke said "what are 1000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean"...... a good start.
So no trading is indeed a good start.
Not doing that lowers your IQ by 60 point's
But that no real problem, since in a little while after release it will be f2p with tradable im stuff
(Do you wanna make a bet we me on that DM ?
If you can't protect it, you adapt. There is no point hiding your head in the sand.
If these measures are successful, I expect they will be expanded and find their way into many new MMO's. RIP MMO "economies" as we knew them, everything will be locked-down and regulated, with devs setting AH prices, etc.
The goldsellers will be left with only selling levelled accounts, unless they can expand their services (which they most likely will do). There's nothing a game developer can do to stop players from helping each other in MMO's in exchange for RL payments...
I disagree that the only negative impact of gold sellers is account theft. That is one damaging aspect of RMT, and even that is reduced by this kind of system simply because there is going to be less gold sellers, less gs spam, and more players aware that the only thing going to a gold seller will achieve is getting your account or credit card information stolen.
One other related thing BDO NA/EU has done, the ramifications of which I think have not been adequately acknowledged, is not allowing cash shop items to be sold on the AH. This is a huge change from the f2p models in other areas; it basically has chopped out one of the major avenues for whales to "p2w".
I find it a little sad that people are very focused on prices of some items and some really quite minor stats on costumes, but have just ignored this vital change.
BDO's removal of P2P trading should be considered an atrocity level crime for the MMORPG world. Akin to Stalin's reign of terror over Ukraine.
Instead of taking a few minutes to implement an SIEM like system to monitor and react to abnormal gold and/or related transactions, they decided to cut out possibly one of the most rewarding aspects of actually playing online with people and being able to help friends out with excess gear/money.
It's decisions like these that are detrimental to building a closely knit social community of actively wanting to help one another out. It is appalling to me that such a concept even got past the first round of development. Had I been at the table when it was suggested, I would have personally loaded the suggester and his family into a cannon, and fired him across the DMZ into one of North Korea's generational prisons.
Join a guild
And since you are still defending such design, the possible reaction/solution to the issue is:
1) Players should move on.
2) Players should look for workarounds.
Considering former would be truly dumb to imply, I assume you are implying the latter.
Am I missing something?
Also why can't it be considered as being anything but poor design?
Sorry but your arguments are paper thin and seem to be focusing only on how something that probably only reduces the impact of wallet warriors and RMT'ers ability to buy/sell gold etc. Will affect ordinary players?
Might it not also be said that there is also the possible corollary of increased social interraction/reliance?
Wallet warriors can still use the cash shop of course, but, they may have to work for their gold for a change.
RMT'ers can cry in their beers, realistically, i don't think many will feel that much sympathy towards them anyway.
However i can think of a good reason why both Wallet Warriors and RMT'ers might be concerned about this kind of a thing, success often breeds proliferation, be interesting to see if thats the case.
Might be the smartest thing ever to take multiple measures like Daum is taking with Black Desert to prevent it from ever starting up. Hopefully if nothing else it will just be too difficult for goldsellers to bother with.
Can't be clearer than that but hey, enjoy your ride on bandwagon of silly ranting.
But, just to clear things up a little;
Twinking Won't;
improve your standing with other players
make people like you more
make the opposite sex more attracted to you!
make the game more challenging
increase your enjoyment of a game, except on a very frivolous level
Twinking Will;
Make the game less challenging
often alienate the twinkee from other players
increase the players level of entitlement!
give you bingo wings! (okay not really!)
reduce your standing with other players.
all joking aside however, there is really not much to be gained by twinking, and much to be lost either through less challenging gameplay and subsequently, getting easily bored because its less challenging, to actually reducing your gaining actual skill in playing because you were never pushed into making that much effort.
Like the saying goes,' whatever you do, don't be 'you lite'
Again, RMT isn't a problem itself, it is the illegal/criminal activities that are attached to it thus making whole measure even sillier - you are hitting smaller nail with even larger hammer.
"Fixing" issues with large sweep decisions is rarely good approach.
i think 99.9% of the gaming industry might take issue with that statement.
It affects in game economies in a hugely negative way, which can influence player retention rates negatively.
It usually involves hacking players accounts to obtain the gold/items that are being traded, which also, can influence player retention rates negatively.
It usually involves botting+spawn/resource camping that oddly enough, also affects player retention rates negatively.
If there is some positive aspect to RMT i am not aware of it.
Are you honestly surprised that developers are actively trying to prevent RMT in their games? sometimes the positives radically outweight the negatives, and RMT is a big problem, because it affects the games bottom line, retaining paying players.
However, similarly to other mmos, it would be very difficult (and inefficient) for one player to master all aspects of crafting/farming/horse breeding etc. so players will have to rely on each other for certain materials and goods that they can't make.
The only difference is that instead of being able to exchange goods informally it has to be done via the AH. Actually, this is the way trade is done a lot of the time in many other mmos as well, except BDO takes it one step further by regulating the market to make it more transparent and safer to trade in.
Combined with the NA/EU version's rule that cash shop items cannot be traded on the AH, this system not only makes it very hard for gold spammers, but also virtually eliminates the ability to "p2w". It pretty much ensures that everyone will actually have to play the game to build up power, with no recourse to use cash either through the cash shop or gold sellers to greatly boost power, or being gifted power by friends /guildies.
People will actually have to play the game to achieve anything. Pretty hardcore right?
There was still RMT spam but the offer where shady or to buy their account. If you are that stupid to fall for such things, you deserve on losing your money.
Realistically from my personal point of view, I am barely using the trade feature while playing any mmo. The only exception was in archeage because I was a carpenter and made furniture and beds to guildmates but I've never traded with random people.
No fate but what we make, so make me a ham sandwich please.
Anyway, people are so upset by what BDO does, and I have a suspicion a few people that argue that it's crap, didn't even try the game properly. You can still help people if you like. With the item max price you can transfer money (if there's not a ton of max price of certain items heh). Or you can be a socialist and do it through the guild pay.
You can twink your alts however the hell you like. Idk what you gonna do with twinks in BDO, but ok, pimp your level 1 toon with +15 armors, no prob, you'll demolish dem beetles and imps :proud: .
Anyway, at the end, the game is about grind. And grind is what you'll do in one way or another. Either level grind, money grind, item grind. If you cant force your way with the wallet, omg, end of world. Oh, you can't totally manipulate AH (you can, but it's limited) to earn fucktons of gold, omg, end of world. People, we're never happy.
Interdependence, or the lack of, does not come with trading options but it is based purely on design level - usually locking out crafting skills, making you pick a "crafting class"(which is circumvented through alts) or complexity of the crafting system.
In BDO there is no such restriction in place - there are no crafting class/skills resrictions, nor there is required complexity in economy and crafting system.
Similarly to other MMOs, it is actual P2P trading that encourage co-operation and reinforce grouping/guild social mechanisms.
Inability to give any materials or gear to your friend is beyond stupid level of game design.
Anyway, imho Daum may percieve it as: Since we made sure you can craft everything yourself, we want to you to engage in all crafting fields, thus we do not see trading fitting our game.
But I highly doubt this approach will work in west...