Would anyone play a MMO with out an economy? What if the only way to get items, any item, was thru crafting or drops and there was no currency and players could not give items to each other. Would this stop gold selling? Would anyone play it?
I wouldn't.
That would be like playing a single player RPG. If you remove the economic part of a MMO, the persitence into it becomes irrelevant. It becomes a "being alone together" type of game and that can't be called a MMO.
What deserves to be done, deserves to be "well" done...
Every step taken to tackle the gold farming/selling "problem" cripples the enjoyment of MMOs that much more. Now we have bind on pickup and commodity economies, all thanks to you blathering idiots who complain about gold selling/buying. You guys ruin MMOs more then any gold seller or gold buyer. I've never once had my play disrupted by a gold seller, but my game play is ALWAYS disrupted by the anti-RMT crowd. You guys are a bane to this gaming genre.
You sir, are what keeps my hope that it's still worth making games for a crowd such as yourself.
/bravo
What deserves to be done, deserves to be "well" done...
You want stop gold buyers,because you are poor man.Poor man want fairplay whit rich man in netgame.But game made by company,company just want more money.they don't care poor player if they can get more money from rich player.
"Rich player want buy gold and game item?OK!This's opporunity!How about sell it by weself........"
Most Chinese and Korea's mmorpg already do that.America's will be soon,I think.
(You say you are richer and hate gold buyers too?You just never tried RMT before.Every richplayer will addiction RMT,I sure it very much.)
The trade limitations that Runescape adopted are similar to what the OP is suggesting and is the solution to stopping gold sellers.
Assign all items a trade value, disallow all gifting of coin and items above a very low amount, only allow trades of items and/or coin to be within a narrow value range, and limit trades between same characters to once every 15 minutes. With these rules, the majority of gold selling would be eliminated.
Nah, it wouldn't work well... If your in a quest with some guildies and loot something incredible awesome for another guild member, you can't give it to them. That would be lame.
Oh god, not again. This discussion has been going on ever since the first time-sink based MMO was released. Please stop. You will always have gold trading as long as it requires time to get gold in a game. Remove time as the main factor of getting gold and you might have a chance. The discussion should not be about stoping the trade, it should be about how to control it.
nariusseldon said it all.
--- Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Your system it too harsh, but the basic ideas are right and would work.
Instead of fixing the prices, just put a 1 time limit buy/selling possibility on any item, and if you earn X millions of point of experience while wearing the item, it reset that slot so it could be resold. That way, you buy/sell an item, then it cant be resell throught the system unless XP are earned significantly while wearing the item. A timer wouldn't work, as speculators are always patient peoples, but they are LAZY peoples, so if you want to replace that XP reset thing with another point, think about what patient but lazy peoples won't do.
The idea here is to stop and destroy speculation. Peoples who buy low and sell high don't play the game much, putting a 1 transfer limit which can be reset while earning XP, would in fact destroy totally their system.
They would possibly find alternatives ways and all, but it would set them 2 or 3 era backward in term of developpment and possibilities. Speculation is what harm your gaming experience.
*************************************
Personnally, I don't care either way. I never fight it, not resist it, not partake in it, and usually, they don't affect me much. I just wish the game give me the tools to report 1 if they are annoying me (EQ was, CoV wasn't...if I tell a goldseller to leave me alone in EQ, he was scared, if I tell a goldseller to leave me alone in CoV, he starts the spamming machine), so I can tell them to leave me alone or they will be reported...as peoples who have always attract these type of players and they can be...quite insistants if the MMOs doesn't have the right tools for you to chase them.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Originally posted by Anofalye Speculation is what harm your gaming experience.
Speculation is what drives people to economic systems. Remove speculation and you remove that aspect of gameplay. Remove that gameplay and you lose customers.
Punishing a valid type of gameplay in order to combat an unwinnable war against RMT sellers is plain stupid.
... The idea here is to stop and destroy speculation...
What? Some people play a game to make lots of gold via the trading system. Just because you do not like the playstyle doesn't mean that it should get kicked out of the game. Thats like saying: If someone doesn't like to do PvP he should be forced to. Play pvp for one hour and you are allowed to PvE again for another hour.
--- Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Speculation is what drives people to economic systems. Remove speculation and you remove that aspect of gameplay. Remove that gameplay and you lose customers.
Punishing a valid type of gameplay in order to combat an unwinnable war against RMT sellers is plain stupid.
Either way, I don't care.
Speculations is raising the prices artificially and isn't a promoted gameplay. You have a choice here, is the auction house to developp an economic game, or is it merely a tool to help the players exchange gears? I vote for a mere tool, and I wouldn't care if all speculators leave the game, as I would be playing a game with peoples alike and thereby, my pleasure will be high, and we will draw more peoples alike.
If you speculate, you harm casuals who can't afford the item because of YOU.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Well if you limit the amount you can sell an item in the auction house what's stopping people from manually selling them on the trade channel? In fact without the auction house, the trade spam would increase by 1000x fold. Then again if you make the item untradable except thru the AH that definitely kills the game economy. Note that the AH system is one type of money sink (thru the AH posting fees).
I was talking to a friend of mine last night about gold buying and selling in MMO's... He doesn't play them, and didn't understand how some people buying gold could affect how others enjoy the game. I explained that people buying gold in WOW have more money to pay for Auction House items. The item sellers then raise the prices since thier auctions sold at the old price... the Gold buyers end up raising the price for those that actually work (in game) for thier money... My friends suggestion was this: Make it so you can't give money or items. Everything has to be traded or bought. Items all have a set vendor price. Give every item a base trade value, and a percentage of variance based on the item rarity. Silk cloth could have a vendor value of 5 copper. The trade value could be 25 copper with a 20% varience since its common. Silk cloth could be sold in the AH for 20 to 30 copper per piece... This means that for a player to "buy" 10K in WOW Gold, you would have to give the person items of equivilent value. It could be cured ham steaks if you want, but something HAS to change hands... Thoughts or comments?
At first your post had me cringing but as i finished the whole post i liked the idea.I think you could take it one step further by eliminating any gold trade in a game,only items for items a sort of barter system.You woulkd also have to have a game that doesn't allow you to drop items on ground so that another player could pick them up and trade them back to you.
IMO game economies wouldn't become broken by RMT monopolizing or rmt gold trade if DEVS would just think about there game setup.I mean geesh how hard is it for a RMT to monopolize/BOT items if they know EXACTLY when and where a NM/BOSS will spawn?You also need to eliminate kill stealing and make sure the game doesn't allow TRAINING.That was something RMT picked up on that allowed them to train several mobs onto a party so they would be wiped and the RMT could steal there boss claim.
Game DEVS just need to wake up and do a little planning into there game design.They also need to wake up and realize there truly is a RMT problem in gaming.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Btw, the ops idea has quite a few problems: It would completely stop any sort of "unfair" trading. How would I give my twinks items or money? How do I give a friend some money? How do guilds collect resources with the help of several members? The next problem would be that items can never have a fixed value. Every player perceives the price of an item differently. Some are willing to pay more, others will only pay so much. Removing gold from an MMO is like going back into time 5000 years ago to when currency didn't exist. Its just too unpractical. The crusade against gold trading will hurt the casual player way more than the gold trader.
--- Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Nah, it wouldn't work well... If your in a quest with some guildies and loot something incredible awesome for another guild member, you can't give it to them. That would be lame.
It would work because everyone is supposed to earn their items, not be given them for free by friends. Everyone in the group would earn a copy of the quest item but regular loot would have to be rolled for and if anyone wants it, they need to trade fair market value for it.
Speculation and or free market trade would barely suffer if an item value database was monitored and adjusted by an employee when needed. The assigned value of dropped items and crafted items should be tied to the auction house daily sales and adjusted automatically to a value range which reflects the current sales figures. That way the value range can increase or decrease based on standard economic principles of supply and demand.
What happens if you eleminate plat selling, I ask?
Players spend RL $ on in-game items instead. How do you stop that? You can't. You cannot stop a player giving something to another player, unless you want people not to play your game.
No, the only way to break this gold-selling market is allocating resources to investigation. Hiring people to track down those using the services and those providing the services, and banning them.
You cannot use restrictive in-game mechanics to achieve this end.
Money is used to buy things, yes? What happens if you eleminate plat selling, I ask? Players spend RL $ on in-game items instead. How do you stop that? You can't. You cannot stop a player giving something to another player, unless you want people not to play your game. No, the only way to break this gold-selling market is allocating resources to investigation. Hiring people to track down those using the services and those providing the services, and banning them. You cannot use restrictive in-game mechanics to achieve this end.
I have no problem playing a MMOG where you can't gift valuable items to friends or guild mates. In fact I would prefer it since I mainly solo. Gifting of items is another way groups and guilds gain advantages over soloers who have to earn everything themselves so I like the idea very much. It's still of great benefit if a friend or guildmate is willing to trade a rare valuable item for the low end of the market value that you would rarely see for sale in the auction house at all.
If the game is of good quality and fun to play, many players will adjust to a trade limited system such as this and many players such as myself would embrace it. Don't underestimate how many people hate gold selling and are willing to give up some liberties to stamp it out.
Originally posted by Samuraisword I have no problem playing a MMOG where you can't gift valuable items to friends or guild mates. In fact I would prefer it since I mainly solo. Gifting of items is another way groups and guilds gain advantages over soloers who have to earn everything themselves so I like the idea very much. It's still of great benefit if a friend or guildmate is willing to trade a rare valuable item for the low end of the market value that you would rarely see for sale in the auction house at all. If the game is of good quality and fun to play, many players will adjust to a trade limited system such as this and many players such as myself would embrace it. Don't underestimate how many people hate gold selling and are willing to give up some liberties to stamp it out.
I can defeat your system.
Say I'm a gold seller. You buy 300pp from me. I arrange to meet you in game. I kill a monster who drops loot worth 300pp. I tell you to loot it. I trade the item you just looted for the 300pp.
Now you're going to say that only players who kill the mobs should be able to loot. Ok, what if we're grouped together and kill it together?
I can defeat your system. Say I'm a gold seller. You buy 300pp from me. I arrange to meet you in game. I kill a monster who drops loot worth 300pp. I tell you to loot it. I trade the item you just looted for the 300pp. Now you're going to say that only players who kill the mobs should be able to loot. Ok, what if we're grouped together and kill it together?
First off gold sellers sell large quantities of gold, not an amount that would drop off a single mob or a few mobs. A player could accomplish that themselves. Gold sellers sell amounts that would take days and weeks to collect.
Only rare and valauble items would generate a large amount of gold if sold, and those items tend to be rare drops off high level mobs. You couldn't just waltz in with a couple characters and kill a tuff mob boss and expect to get the rare valuable item every time on a frequent basis. The game economy would suck and be inflated if anyone could easily earn items or gold that way.
Also the majority of gold sellers won't expose their main characters unless they are stupid, for fear of having their account banned. The main character is the one doing the farming and storing of gold and items. Gold sellers usually conduct business with lvl 1 characters on secondary accounts.
And just a little thinking outside the box here...
It is not against the EULA to pay people to play with you. So let's say you eliminate gold selling altogether. Instead, a company offers a service where you pay to have some uber-geared people follow you and hunt stuff for you.
In a short time, you have looted enough gold and items that you can sell to buy the item you really want. Whatever that is.
It just seems to me, that whatever tweaks you make to the game mechanics, there will always be some sort of service that these people can offer. At the moment it's gold selling. But they could adapt, they could probably find new markets despite your measures.
In ultimately, you will have killed the market economies with fixed pricing, banned player from passing items between their toons and friends, and all sorts of other things people wouldn't like.
Ok, I'm the gold seller. I sell you an item for 100pp, you sell it back for 120pp (the 20% variance you suggested). I've gained 20pp. Do this 10 times and I've gained 200pp. I sell you another item for 100,000pp. You sell it back to me for 120,000pp. We repeat this 10 times. I've gained 200,000pp. Sure, it would take all day, but hey...
If trades between same characters are limited to once every 15 minutes as I suggested and Runescape has also adopted, this loophole would not be feasable. It would take days to gift gold like that in small quantities in order to complete a significant gold purchase. No goldseller or customer would sit somewhere with their characters for days to do that.
originally posted by k9wazere
It is not against the EULA to pay people to play with you. So let's say you eliminate gold selling altogether. Instead, a company offers a service where you pay to have some uber-geared people follow you and hunt stuff for you.
Sure people can pay someone to group with them. That would be pretty expensive though, and a slow process, but at least that way both the seller and the buyer have to play the game and put just as much effort into earning items as anyone else, so no harm no foul IMO. It would be silly for a player to pay for that type of service when they can achieve the same thing by grouping with other players for free.
People can pay someone to powerlevel a character for them also, though most games have level limits to make powerleveling difficult and more time consuming for the seller and thus more expensive to the buyer. If you have a 5 lvl experience limit restriction so that the lower character gets no experience if grouped with a character above 5 lvls, then the powerlevelers would have to constantly build new characters in order to level other players. They couldn't just have one or two maxed lvl characters to perform the job constantly.
- Players cannot give each other items; they can only sell them to each other.
- A player can only initiate a trade every 15 minutes.
- A max 20% enchange over some 'base value' is allowed in a trade.
I am assuming that you would limit the number of items which can be traded at one time? Otherwise, you would again have a workaround, where two players traded several score high value items at the 20% exchange allowed.
Interesting. That would definitely put a crimp in most gold selling, although as was mentioned above - it's certainly possible for the gold sellers to find other avenues, given enough time. None would likely be quite as easy to handle as selling gold, however. Buying gold off a website and having it mailed to your character is FAR easier to organize than, say, setting up a powerleveling session. You don't have to stop all real-money transactions cold, really; you just need to make it enough of a hassle that it's not worth the goldselling cartels' time to do it in your game.
I worry though that this would also undermine the player economy, and damage the feeling of realism in the game. Players DO want to be able to gift things - after all, they can do it in the real world, so why not the virtual one? Still, even given this, it's certainly a plausible method to take.
I am big time crafter in MMOGs so I certainly want to preserve as much of an open free market economy as possible, but I am willing to sacrifice some profits and ease of trade in order to put a major crimp in goldselling. The realistic goal isn't to completely stamp out all possibilities but to reduce it to such a trivial amount that what is leftover has little impact on the game and the fair level playing field one expects in MMOGs.
I already stated I don't care about not being able to gift items or gold since I mainly solo. I believe it's reasonable to expect groups of friends and guildmembers to earn their items as well and trade fair market value for them amongst each other.
With the previous rulesets in place, the only market I see left for people wanting to profit from playing MMOGs is by selling preleveled characters which doesn't really effect the game balance. The character in question still earned their levels and items.
I have my own ideas for curbing the selling of gold, but I take a very different approach. My idea was to devalue items bought in favour of items quested and looted. What do I mean?
Well, say you loot a Sword of Noob Slaying for a boss in a dungeon. If you equip and use that sword yourself, it will never decay or break.
However, if you then trade that item to another player, it will have a remaining life of 50 days, minus however many days the original looter has owned it. Eg, if the player sells the item two days after looting it, it now has a life expectancy of 48 days. After which it will no longer be usable.
Additionally, purchased items have a small % chance that they will break before the set time. For every level the current user is below the level of the orginal loot, that chance is increased.
This on its own would not be enough. Under such a system, people would be encouraged to farm and sell items.
So an additional measure is needed: items dropped from mobs (except common items) can only be looted once per character. Think about it: does it make sense that you can kill the same NPC twice, and loot the same items twice? No, not really.
So there is my suggestion. Btw, this thread is great, as it got me thinking
Comments
That would be like playing a single player RPG. If you remove the economic part of a MMO, the persitence into it becomes irrelevant. It becomes a "being alone together" type of game and that can't be called a MMO.
What deserves to be done, deserves to be "well" done...
/bravo
What deserves to be done, deserves to be "well" done...
You want stop gold buyers,because you are poor man.Poor man want fairplay whit rich man in netgame.But game made by company,company just want more money.they don't care poor player if they can get more money from rich player.
"Rich player want buy gold and game item?OK!This's opporunity!How about sell it by weself........"
Most Chinese and Korea's mmorpg already do that.America's will be soon,I think.
(You say you are richer and hate gold buyers too?You just never tried RMT before.Every richplayer will addiction RMT,I sure it very much.)
-------
Chairman Mao praised my handsome.
The trade limitations that Runescape adopted are similar to what the OP is suggesting and is the solution to stopping gold sellers.
Assign all items a trade value, disallow all gifting of coin and items above a very low amount, only allow trades of items and/or coin to be within a narrow value range, and limit trades between same characters to once every 15 minutes. With these rules, the majority of gold selling would be eliminated.
Nah, it wouldn't work well... If your in a quest with some guildies and loot something incredible awesome for another guild member, you can't give it to them. That would be lame.
Oh god, not again. This discussion has been going on ever since the first time-sink based MMO was released. Please stop. You will always have gold trading as long as it requires time to get gold in a game. Remove time as the main factor of getting gold and you might have a chance. The discussion should not be about stoping the trade, it should be about how to control it.
nariusseldon said it all.
---
Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Your system it too harsh, but the basic ideas are right and would work.
Instead of fixing the prices, just put a 1 time limit buy/selling possibility on any item, and if you earn X millions of point of experience while wearing the item, it reset that slot so it could be resold. That way, you buy/sell an item, then it cant be resell throught the system unless XP are earned significantly while wearing the item. A timer wouldn't work, as speculators are always patient peoples, but they are LAZY peoples, so if you want to replace that XP reset thing with another point, think about what patient but lazy peoples won't do.
The idea here is to stop and destroy speculation. Peoples who buy low and sell high don't play the game much, putting a 1 transfer limit which can be reset while earning XP, would in fact destroy totally their system.
They would possibly find alternatives ways and all, but it would set them 2 or 3 era backward in term of developpment and possibilities. Speculation is what harm your gaming experience.
*************************************
Personnally, I don't care either way. I never fight it, not resist it, not partake in it, and usually, they don't affect me much. I just wish the game give me the tools to report 1 if they are annoying me (EQ was, CoV wasn't...if I tell a goldseller to leave me alone in EQ, he was scared, if I tell a goldseller to leave me alone in CoV, he starts the spamming machine), so I can tell them to leave me alone or they will be reported...as peoples who have always attract these type of players and they can be...quite insistants if the MMOs doesn't have the right tools for you to chase them.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Speculation is what drives people to economic systems. Remove speculation and you remove that aspect of gameplay. Remove that gameplay and you lose customers.
Punishing a valid type of gameplay in order to combat an unwinnable war against RMT sellers is plain stupid.
What? Some people play a game to make lots of gold via the trading system. Just because you do not like the playstyle doesn't mean that it should get kicked out of the game. Thats like saying: If someone doesn't like to do PvP he should be forced to. Play pvp for one hour and you are allowed to PvE again for another hour.
---
Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Speculation is what drives people to economic systems. Remove speculation and you remove that aspect of gameplay. Remove that gameplay and you lose customers.
Punishing a valid type of gameplay in order to combat an unwinnable war against RMT sellers is plain stupid.
Either way, I don't care.
Speculations is raising the prices artificially and isn't a promoted gameplay. You have a choice here, is the auction house to developp an economic game, or is it merely a tool to help the players exchange gears? I vote for a mere tool, and I wouldn't care if all speculators leave the game, as I would be playing a game with peoples alike and thereby, my pleasure will be high, and we will draw more peoples alike.
If you speculate, you harm casuals who can't afford the item because of YOU.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Speculation is deeply embedded in human nature. Good luck trying to stamp that out.
Well if you limit the amount you can sell an item in the auction house what's stopping people from manually selling them on the trade channel? In fact without the auction house, the trade spam would increase by 1000x fold. Then again if you make the item untradable except thru the AH that definitely kills the game economy. Note that the AH system is one type of money sink (thru the AH posting fees).
IMO game economies wouldn't become broken by RMT monopolizing or rmt gold trade if DEVS would just think about there game setup.I mean geesh how hard is it for a RMT to monopolize/BOT items if they know EXACTLY when and where a NM/BOSS will spawn?You also need to eliminate kill stealing and make sure the game doesn't allow TRAINING.That was something RMT picked up on that allowed them to train several mobs onto a party so they would be wiped and the RMT could steal there boss claim.
Game DEVS just need to wake up and do a little planning into there game design.They also need to wake up and realize there truly is a RMT problem in gaming.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Btw, the ops idea has quite a few problems: It would completely stop any sort of "unfair" trading. How would I give my twinks items or money? How do I give a friend some money? How do guilds collect resources with the help of several members? The next problem would be that items can never have a fixed value. Every player perceives the price of an item differently. Some are willing to pay more, others will only pay so much. Removing gold from an MMO is like going back into time 5000 years ago to when currency didn't exist. Its just too unpractical. The crusade against gold trading will hurt the casual player way more than the gold trader.
---
Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
It would work because everyone is supposed to earn their items, not be given them for free by friends. Everyone in the group would earn a copy of the quest item but regular loot would have to be rolled for and if anyone wants it, they need to trade fair market value for it.
Speculation and or free market trade would barely suffer if an item value database was monitored and adjusted by an employee when needed. The assigned value of dropped items and crafted items should be tied to the auction house daily sales and adjusted automatically to a value range which reflects the current sales figures. That way the value range can increase or decrease based on standard economic principles of supply and demand.
Money is used to buy things, yes?
What happens if you eleminate plat selling, I ask?
Players spend RL $ on in-game items instead. How do you stop that? You can't. You cannot stop a player giving something to another player, unless you want people not to play your game.
No, the only way to break this gold-selling market is allocating resources to investigation. Hiring people to track down those using the services and those providing the services, and banning them.
You cannot use restrictive in-game mechanics to achieve this end.
I have no problem playing a MMOG where you can't gift valuable items to friends or guild mates. In fact I would prefer it since I mainly solo. Gifting of items is another way groups and guilds gain advantages over soloers who have to earn everything themselves so I like the idea very much. It's still of great benefit if a friend or guildmate is willing to trade a rare valuable item for the low end of the market value that you would rarely see for sale in the auction house at all.
If the game is of good quality and fun to play, many players will adjust to a trade limited system such as this and many players such as myself would embrace it. Don't underestimate how many people hate gold selling and are willing to give up some liberties to stamp it out.
Say I'm a gold seller. You buy 300pp from me. I arrange to meet you in game. I kill a monster who drops loot worth 300pp. I tell you to loot it. I trade the item you just looted for the 300pp.
Now you're going to say that only players who kill the mobs should be able to loot. Ok, what if we're grouped together and kill it together?
First off gold sellers sell large quantities of gold, not an amount that would drop off a single mob or a few mobs. A player could accomplish that themselves. Gold sellers sell amounts that would take days and weeks to collect.
Only rare and valauble items would generate a large amount of gold if sold, and those items tend to be rare drops off high level mobs. You couldn't just waltz in with a couple characters and kill a tuff mob boss and expect to get the rare valuable item every time on a frequent basis. The game economy would suck and be inflated if anyone could easily earn items or gold that way.
Also the majority of gold sellers won't expose their main characters unless they are stupid, for fear of having their account banned. The main character is the one doing the farming and storing of gold and items. Gold sellers usually conduct business with lvl 1 characters on secondary accounts.
Ok, I'm the gold seller. I sell you an item for 100pp, you sell it back for 120pp (the 20% variance you suggested).
I've gained 20pp. Do this 10 times and I've gained 200pp.
I sell you another item for 100,000pp. You sell it back to me for 120,000pp. We repeat this 10 times. I've gained 200,000pp.
Sure, it would take all day, but hey...
And just a little thinking outside the box here...
It is not against the EULA to pay people to play with you. So let's say you eliminate gold selling altogether. Instead, a company offers a service where you pay to have some uber-geared people follow you and hunt stuff for you.
In a short time, you have looted enough gold and items that you can sell to buy the item you really want. Whatever that is.
It just seems to me, that whatever tweaks you make to the game mechanics, there will always be some sort of service that these people can offer. At the moment it's gold selling. But they could adapt, they could probably find new markets despite your measures.
In ultimately, you will have killed the market economies with fixed pricing, banned player from passing items between their toons and friends, and all sorts of other things people wouldn't like.
If trades between same characters are limited to once every 15 minutes as I suggested and Runescape has also adopted, this loophole would not be feasable. It would take days to gift gold like that in small quantities in order to complete a significant gold purchase. No goldseller or customer would sit somewhere with their characters for days to do that.
originally posted by k9wazere
It is not against the EULA to pay people to play with you. So let's say you eliminate gold selling altogether. Instead, a company offers a service where you pay to have some uber-geared people follow you and hunt stuff for you.
Sure people can pay someone to group with them. That would be pretty expensive though, and a slow process, but at least that way both the seller and the buyer have to play the game and put just as much effort into earning items as anyone else, so no harm no foul IMO. It would be silly for a player to pay for that type of service when they can achieve the same thing by grouping with other players for free.
People can pay someone to powerlevel a character for them also, though most games have level limits to make powerleveling difficult and more time consuming for the seller and thus more expensive to the buyer. If you have a 5 lvl experience limit restriction so that the lower character gets no experience if grouped with a character above 5 lvls, then the powerlevelers would have to constantly build new characters in order to level other players. They couldn't just have one or two maxed lvl characters to perform the job constantly.
Interesting. So, you propose:
- Players cannot give each other items; they can only sell them to each other.
- A player can only initiate a trade every 15 minutes.
- A max 20% enchange over some 'base value' is allowed in a trade.
I am assuming that you would limit the number of items which can be traded at one time? Otherwise, you would again have a workaround, where two players traded several score high value items at the 20% exchange allowed.
Interesting. That would definitely put a crimp in most gold selling, although as was mentioned above - it's certainly possible for the gold sellers to find other avenues, given enough time. None would likely be quite as easy to handle as selling gold, however. Buying gold off a website and having it mailed to your character is FAR easier to organize than, say, setting up a powerleveling session. You don't have to stop all real-money transactions cold, really; you just need to make it enough of a hassle that it's not worth the goldselling cartels' time to do it in your game.
I worry though that this would also undermine the player economy, and damage the feeling of realism in the game. Players DO want to be able to gift things - after all, they can do it in the real world, so why not the virtual one? Still, even given this, it's certainly a plausible method to take.
Owyn
Commander, Defenders of Order
http://www.defendersoforder.com
I am big time crafter in MMOGs so I certainly want to preserve as much of an open free market economy as possible, but I am willing to sacrifice some profits and ease of trade in order to put a major crimp in goldselling. The realistic goal isn't to completely stamp out all possibilities but to reduce it to such a trivial amount that what is leftover has little impact on the game and the fair level playing field one expects in MMOGs.
I already stated I don't care about not being able to gift items or gold since I mainly solo. I believe it's reasonable to expect groups of friends and guildmembers to earn their items as well and trade fair market value for them amongst each other.
With the previous rulesets in place, the only market I see left for people wanting to profit from playing MMOGs is by selling preleveled characters which doesn't really effect the game balance. The character in question still earned their levels and items.
I have my own ideas for curbing the selling of gold, but I take a very different approach. My idea was to devalue items bought in favour of items quested and looted. What do I mean?
Well, say you loot a Sword of Noob Slaying for a boss in a dungeon. If you equip and use that sword yourself, it will never decay or break.
However, if you then trade that item to another player, it will have a remaining life of 50 days, minus however many days the original looter has owned it. Eg, if the player sells the item two days after looting it, it now has a life expectancy of 48 days. After which it will no longer be usable.
Additionally, purchased items have a small % chance that they will break before the set time. For every level the current user is below the level of the orginal loot, that chance is increased.
This on its own would not be enough. Under such a system, people would be encouraged to farm and sell items.
So an additional measure is needed: items dropped from mobs (except common items) can only be looted once per character. Think about it: does it make sense that you can kill the same NPC twice, and loot the same items twice? No, not really.
So there is my suggestion. Btw, this thread is great, as it got me thinking