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Star Wars Galaxies Auctions Afoot
Fusty writes "Game Girl Advance is running a story about the first wave of Star Wars Galaxies auctions on Ebay. Items, credits and characters are already selling for over $250, not even a month after launch. Will Sony/Verant shut down SWG auctions, like they did the EverQuest Auctions?"
Players complain to the GMs in game when they are scammed, or to Sony support, and Sony doesn't like dealing with it.
think for yourself. question authority.
I'm sure that's been tried on the black market for organs, as well.
"Here, pay $500,000 for this cardboard box and I'll throw a kidney inside it as a bonus."
This is still besides the fact that eBay is a privately owned company, not a public service, and it is at their sole discretion what is and is not a violation of their AUP. You're not going to lawyer your way out of it.
i personally think its a waste of money
but to some
having more in game stuff leads to a more valuable game experience, ie more fun
to them, it is worth RL money...
they dont really play for a sense of life achievement, its a game made to entertain
That's all this is: paying somebody else to play the game for you so you can benefit without doing the work.
Makes sense to a degree... don't you have more fun when you have a powerful character that can roam the land freely? One who doesn't have to fear the first bunch of orcs they run across?
If people want to purchase a pre-leveled character and skip the grunt work (let's be honest... you're just doing it to get a higher-level character and the fun/freedom that comes with that character), then why not?
Personally, my time is valuable... I'd be a bloody fool to spend hours scraping up experience points in an online world. If there's someone who has more time on their hands, and they are willing to sell it that cheaply, then bully for them. If I am willing to spend real world dollars for their time, then good on me.
Enjoyment comes in all shapes and sizes... if someone wants to spend dollars for it, then somebody will fill that market.
I wouldn't do it... those kind of online games are not my thing. However, I can see there from here. Yes, I know money theoretically shouldn't provide an advantage, but all online worlds have to have SOME resemblance to the real world in them... this is perfect. What real-world element could be more appropriate than this "golden rule?" (ie. the one with the gold makes the rules)
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
In SWG, not all animals are equal. If you want to play a "force sensitive" character ( i.e. a Jedi ), you first need to unlock something known as the Force Sensitive Character Slot on your account ( as detailed here ). Nobody seems to be sure yet how exactly this is done.
Now, this is going to create a huge market for accounts, in my eyes. Being a Jedi is the big goal for a lot of people playing this game, and if they're willing to shed a few real life bucks to buy a house, I imagine they'd be very happy to part with more to be given the inside line on what will probably be the best part of the game. Especially if the FSCS unlock method is not widely known at the time.
YLFIOne god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
Hardcore StarWars fans: one of the most fiercely loyal, and ravenous fan-bases. They eat up anything with the starwars tag on it.
Hardcore MMORPG players: Willing to spend 2/3 of their waking lives playing a game that is largely clicking on a monster and then getting a few imaginary credits for said action.
Combine the two, and what did you expect? No matter how bad the game is (I personally think it's terrible, though I respect other opinions) people will:
A) play it
B) Spend REAL money to get imaginary status
Fools and their money, thats what i say. If sony was smart, instead of banning these sales all together, they would charge a 10% transaction fee.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
The problem is it weakens the game. Because now when you meet that High-Level Jedi master with the double-ended lightsabre, how do you know it's not just a newbie with a trust fund, who decided to take a crack at "that new star wars game" but didn't want to go through the effort of earning anything himself in SWG anymore than he does in real life?
It's better to keep the game world and the real world from spilling over into each other as far as resources and wealth, to maintain the internal consistency of the game world.
-- the only thing we have to fear is really scary things
Next youll tell me that hunting rats,hitting them twenty times with blasters, and running for twenty minutes at a time is Star Wars!
IANAL, but the way I see it is that if they allow people to sell in game items as "real" property, then those in-game items take on "real" tangible value. And with our society the way it is, in America, anyway, that means lawsuits. So, if your $3000 lightsaber is lost due to a server crash, you could sue them.
And what of theft? If you have $5,000 real-life worth of in-game items, and I kill your character, and steal them, could that consitute theft in real-life? Would they be liable for allowing that to happen in-game?
These are all questions they do not want to have to deal with. By taking the stand that they do not allow real-world selling of in-game assets, and by enforcing that stance by account deletion, etc, they are creating a legal barrier to prevent any of that from happening. If they turn a blind eye and allow the sales to continue, they are giving de facto approval, and thus allowing real-life value to be assigned to in-game items. I can't imagine any other action than them shutting down these sales.
The annoying part in all this is that we, as a society, have only ourselves to blame for ruining our own fun.
WWJD?
JWRTFM!
If you can not tell the difference between a newbie with a trust fund and a legitimate player, I have to seriosly question you knowlage of that particular game. As somebody who has played EverQuest at hiegh levels I can tell you with absolute certanty that an ebayers does not have a snow balls chance in hall of hiding the fact. An expirienced player will pickup on a dozen ques, from the reletive position of the character, to timing in responses both to the world and other players and not the least of all questions and comments. Think of it as hiring an English Major for system level development. His lack of knowlage and etiquete will stand out like a sore thumb within minutes for anybody worth their salt. Anyway, there is nothing wrong in practice in principle. If somebody is able to buy an account and play it with skill that the level demands, what is the difference?
Quite honestly, I don't care what they decide to do. If they want to allow selling, then ignore it. If they say it's not allowed, then come down as hard as a hammer on those selling.
But under no circumstances should they do what Mythic has done to ruin Dark Age of Camelot: Ignore their own rules, let cheaters prosper, and destroy the integrity of the game, all for the sake of not losing accounts.
I spent countless hours leveling up with my own money and crafting my way to legendary, only to be undercut by people who used cheats to craft and obtain money, and level.
Mythic did NOTHING when handed damning evidence, because they'd lose accounts if they banned people. As a result, there's no point in playing for anyone or any purpose except your own damned skin. Thanks Mythic.
So Sony, do what you will. Just do it for real.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
> "Most of the auctions are for credits (20k credits on Bria server, etc). Some are for buildings, or accounts."
What this highlights is that the in-game markets aren't working. If SOE provide better in-game fora for these transfers, they can nip this in the bud right now.
Of course, it's far more exciting to debate how stoooopid people are for paying $$$ for blasters. You can get back to doing that now.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
It's apparent that you've never played such a game for any appreciable length of time. When it's kept reasonable in length, the treadmill is very rewarding (and not just in an addictive/fix kind of way).
It's *fun* to be scared of those little orcs at first.
It's fun when you can first start killing them.
It's fun to reduce killing them to a methodical science (shortly before you move on to killing trolls).
And it's the most fun to return to a dungeon that used to have you twitching in fear and be able to walk through it with orcs bouncing off you like spitballs.
Someone who buys a high level character misses this experience entirely. The spitball effect is only truly rewarding when you remember being scared of those things 2 months ago.
I'm not against player auctions by any means. Different strokes and all, but you are completely missing a huge part of the appeal of MMOG's.
Furthermore, there's a huge skill component gained in levelling your own character. Back in the EQ beta days, a brother of the CEO (kelly Flock) and a friend of his came through Runnyeye decked out in top notch gear.
They were a disaster. They had no idea what they were doing, fell off ledges, got surrounded by goblins that they would have been able to handle easily if fought properly, and ended up dead. We were a few levels lower than they were, relatively poorly equipped, and helped them get their corpses if memory serves.
It's like giving a 10 year old boy an M1 Abrams tank. They just don't do well.
Disclaimer: I am not a treadmill player kicking Innoruuk's head around at level 60. I bailed out at level 28. I think the treadmill gets far too flat at the upper levels of EQ.
Some people work. You know that time consuming thingy which earns you money. Therefore some people have more money than time and don't want to spent hours upon hours running around and killing beginner level monsters just to be able to compete and do more interesting quests. Therefore they think its A Good Idea(TM) to pay some pimple faced geek who hasn't seen daylight in years for doing that no-fun stuff for them.
Money for invested time. Good concept, rather common too
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage